East Gippsland Lakes

From the Victorian High Country we've continued south as far as we can go and now we're camped at Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland.  A rare occurrence for us is to have several days of rainy weather, so we're glad to be holed up at the Silver Sands Tourist Park.  The Gippsland Lakes drain into Bass Strait.  There's not much between us and Tasmania!

Being a holiday town, there's a few things to do here and we're just waiting for some fine weather to get out and about.  We'll be here for a few more days.

Victorian High Country

About 15km from our campsite on the Upper Murray River is the Victorian town of Corryong.  The legend of The Man From Snowy River relates to some of the men from this area.  AB (Banjo) Patterson immortalised  these men and their horsemanship in his poem.  One of these men, Jack Riley, is buried in Corryong and there's a statue outside the information centre.

Khancoban is at the southern end of the Snowy Mountains.  One day we drove to Thredbo Alpine Village for lunch - just because we could.  The 2 hour drive along The Alpine Way was very picturesque.  It's been about 30 years since we've driven this road and it's as beautiful now as it was in the 1970s/1980s.  We decided to tour the Murray 1 Power Station.  There's an excellent information centre and we enjoyed watching the DVD about the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a true nation building scheme to bring hydro-electricity to eastern Australia.  The scheme began in 1949 and was completed in 1974; 25 years of post-WWII development which shaped Australia and employed many post-war European immigrants.

We travelled further south into more of the Victorian High Country to camp at the Hinnomunjie Bridge Camping Ground.  The old wooden trestle bridge is one of only 3 original bridges in Victoria and the axe marks can be seen on the hand-hewn logs.

Back to Omeo and we did the tourist thing, visiting the "Judicial Precinct Museum".  The Court House and Jail are just two of the old buildings in the precinct. 

The Cuckoo Clock Shop is full of European clock and Christmas Decorations, it's a good thing they weren't all set to chime or cuckoo on the hour.  On Australia Day, January 26, we joined in with the local celebrations in the park. 

There were many gold mines in the Omeo area and some of these have been preserved with walking trails and interpretation boards.  We walked around the Oriental Claims area.  There's also the Pioneer Claims area which we saw from the lookout.  Alluvial gold was mined here and huge amounts of dirt were dug and washed to obtain the gold.  There is still evidence of the stonework channels which were built to divert the water flows.

We managed to catch some fish in the Mitta Mitta River while we were camped here.  A couple of trout and a nice big silver perch provided us with some fresh fish dinners.

Back in Oz ..... and Back on the Road

We've been back in Australia for just over a week.  It hasn't taken us long to get back into the groove.  We picked up our caravan from Murrumbateman near Canberra and took a couple of days to restock the cupboards and pack our clothes and other stuff into their rightful places.  On Wednesday 13th January we set off again.  This time we've headed south into Victoria.

Our first night was spent at Morleys Creek Campground in Gundagai.  We've stayed here before and this time we had only one neighbour.  Perhaps the other campers had decided to stay in the caravan parks so they could use their air conditioners - it was 42C.

The next morning we made our way further south and stopped at Holbrook - "The Submarine Town" - for lunch.  Holbrook was originally called "Germanton" and the name was changed after World War I to honour Lt Norman N.D. Holbrook RN who was awarded the first Naval Victoria Cross.  There is a 1/5 scale model of Holbrook's submarine, a Submarine Museum and the above waterline structure of HMAS Otway.

After lunch we turned east onto the Murray Valley Highway towards the southern end of the Snowy Mountains.

We're camped at the Indi Bridge Campground near Upper Towong (Vic), about halfway between Khancoban in NSW and Corryong in Victoria.  This is a little piece of paradise on the Upper Murray River in dairy country.  Near Khancoban are the Murray #1 and Murray #2 Power Stations which are part of the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity Scheme.

The air is clean and the skies are blue - hopefully we'll catch some trout in the river (we're not too hopeful of this as the water is a bit too warm).

Sawasdee Thailand

Our transfer from Helsinki to Copenhagen and from there to check-in for our flight to Bangkok was uneventful.  We just chilled out in the airport at Copenhagen and we were able to pack away some of our heavy clothes.  We certainly won't be needing them for a while now - we'll be warming up in Bangkok.  The flight was uneventful, although we had a bit of turbulence as we flew over the himalayas.  We all managed to get a few hours sleep after our last couple of early morning rises.




We're back in one of our favourite cities - Bangkok.  Shoppers paradise and plenty of gold and glitz!

One of THE places to visit is the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Keow, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  We've been there many times and are always awed by it and the reverence of the Thai people.  Today the Temple will be closed at 2pm for the "Changing of the Clothes Ceremony".  Three times a year The King changes the clothes on the Emerald Buddha.  The Buddha is carved from a single piece of jade and wears seasonal clothes - summer, winter and rainy season.

We've spent much of our time here shopping.  We also managed to see Star Wars - The Force Awakens; in the First Class Cinema at the Central World Shopping Centre.  We have one more night in Bangkok.  Tomorrow night we're back on the plane to fly back to Brisbane where we'll say goodbye to our grand-daughter.  She'll fly back to Townsville and we'll fly to Canberra.

We've had an AMAZING 5 week holiday.

Farewell to Lapland

Our few days in Lapland ended and we boarded the ski bus for the drive back to Rovaniemi.  As we left Pyhatunturi we were able to get a photo of the caravan park.  We'd been past it a few times but it was always too dark to take photos.  And we think we do it tough sometimes - these guys are camping in temperatures as low as -30C!!!



We drove back through Luostro with its ice sculptures.  This is where we got off the bus on our first day.  This time many people were leaving and our small 20 seater bus was full with a couple of passengers standing for the 2 hour trip to Rovaniemi.  We left our luggage in the locked luggage room at the airport as we had about 6 hours to kill before we could check in for our flight.








We're going to fill in this time with a visit to Santa's Village.  We caught a taxi for the few kms ride and arrived in daylight which wouldn't last long.

The village is mainly shops selling Finnish goods and souvenirs with some snow activities and it was easy to spend a few hours just wandering around.  Santa was home but we didn't visit him.  I'm sure he was very tired after all his Christmas activity.

Back to Rovaniemi Airport for the short domestic flight to Helsinki where we stayed overnight in the Airport Hilton Hotel.  We had an early rise the next morning for our fight to Copenhagen.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - Lapland Style

There's only one word for Lapland - WOW!!!








On our first day here we went for a ride on a reindeer sled.  The next day we were off driving ski mobiles.  The following day we were digging for amethyst in an amethyst mine.  We caught our transport to the top of the mountain - 400m up hill.  There was plenty of fresh snow and we sank down to our knees when we tried to walk on it.  No ice here, just soft powdery snow.









We had a talk about the amethyst mine.  These mountains were 45km high and have been eroded away by freezing water and also by the 10 ice-ages that this country has experienced (the last one was 10,000 years ago).  Along with the purple amethyst, smoky quartz, milk quartz and clear quartz can be found here.









We dug around in the dirt with our picks and managed to find some nice amethyst crystals - not enough to make our fortune though.  we hadn't bought anything to remember this trip by so decided to buy a share in the amethyst mine.  So we'll be taking home a little bit of Lapland with us.








After our mining experience we were off to see the husky farm and experience a husky trail.  All of the dogs at the farm are either pure bred Alaskan Huskies, pure bread Siberian Huskies or half breeds of each.











The huskies are very friendly and love to play with the staff.  They are very strong and are keen workers.  Huskies can run up to 50kph and will run up to 50km in a day.  They function best when temperatures are -20 to -30C.  Robert cuddled a 7 week old puppy called Belle.







After our tour of the farm and kennels we embarked on our husky sled ride.  Cherryl had the easy bit - just sitting in the sled.  Robert "drove" the sled through the forest, along the trail, in the dark, with light snow falling - magic.  "Drove" is a bit of and exaggeration as we just went where toe dogs took us and Robert used the brake to control our speed when we went downhill or around corners.








The sleds are pulled by 6 dogs.  Two makes are closest to the sled as they are the strongest.  Next are 2 more dogs pulling (male, female or one of each).  In the lead are 2 females - they are smarter and can remember the trails better.









In the evening we travelled to the top of the mountain in a snow-cat to have dinner.  We hoped to see the Northern Lights but there's too much cloud cover.

Yesterday was a rest day as we prepared for New Years Eve.  Dinner at a nearby restaurant was delicious.  We are fans of reindeer meat which is very tender and juicy.  We've had reindeer soup and reindeer steaks - delicious.  All parts of the reindeer are used - fur, meat, bones and antlers - and the Finnish herd is maintained at around 200,000 beasts; which is seen to be a sustainable number.






After we'd finished eating we participated in a Finnish New Year custom.  We were all given a small aluminium horseshoe to hold onto.  Later in the evening, the horseshoe was melted over a fire and the liquid was poured into a bucket of water.  The resulting shape told our fortunes for the coming year.








After dinner everyone went out onto the snow to watch the skiers ski down the mountain carrying flares.  This was followed by fireworks which lit up the whole mountain.

A  few hours sleep and we're packed up again ready to leave our winter wonderland.



HAPPY NEW YEAR and BEST WISHES FOR 2016!