Nick the German ,whom was sharing our free camp site with us, had given me a few hints about trout fishing
the night before so I was up early with rod in hand heading for the river. It
was an awesome morning watching heaps of brown trout taking flies and bugs of
the top of the water. Unfortunately they weren’t interested in any of my lures
but the adrenalin was up every time I saw one break the water. When one of my
lures got snagged I decided to leave it attached to the line and head back, get
the goggles and retrieve it after breakfast. Fully nourished I returned to find
it was only knee deep water. Nick and the boys came down to watch and we
noticed a huge yabby hiding under a submerged log. As Jack ran back to get the
landing net Nick noticed the great great great grandmother of the huge yabby
sunning itself a few meters away, this thing was prehistoric. When Jack returned
with the net Nick joined me in the water and we mounted two pronged attack. A
minute later and we had ourselves a MASSIVE yabby! Much to the boys difference
we decided that we she was to beautiful to eat and we put the old girl back for
the sake of the future.
We packed up and headed for Wilsons Prom. While it is only
200kms as the crow flies I guestimated it would be a 4 hour drive as the first
60k were on dirt road. The first 2 hours heading up the river were awesome. Sure
the road was a bit corrugated but otherwise in pretty good shape and the
scenery was magnificent twisting alongside the river through tiny villages.
Once we reached Matlock however the grader seemed to have decided about a
decade ago not to worry about going any further. There are usually pot holes on
roads but I think this pot hole had a road! After about an hour and a half (that’s
3 ½ on dirt now) later we reached a bitumen road to our delight and some
cheering, only for it to disappear again five minutes later for another bone jarring
half an hour. So with about eight hours of dirt roads in two days we decided to
add lesson #2 - NO MORE (long) DIRT
ROADS, especially in the high country of Victoria. There was the opportunity take
another dirt road that would have shaved about 150kms of the trip but took the
long way instead.
The boys had been so good and had hardly complained so we
lashed out and had hot chip sandwiches for lunch in Warburton. We finally got
out of the mountains and to my relief onto the flats of what I think is called
the Gippsland region. Nine hours later we had completed the 200km journey and
that doesn’t even include the 4 hour short cut from the day before! I have
since taken the time to see what the difference in kilometres and time is
according to Google Maps....our route was a massive 24kms shorter but only
ADDED about 4 hours to the journey – high country driving is something different!
We were excited to be at Wilson’s Prom or The Prom for a few
reasons. Firstly we had hot showers! Secondly we could tick the most southerly
point of our list, thirdly it is also in Are We There Yet?and finally it was the end of our biiiig drives - everything from here will be short hops and skips of an hour or two, at least until we get to Perth (with the exception of the Nullarbor Plain) As we drove in
the sandy beaches looked awesome and I couldn’t wait to get some sand and salt
water between my dusty toes!
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