Day 16 – 21/12/13 – Forrest Hill -> Slatey Creek Camp Vic

It was a reasonably late night thanks to the Chocolate Rum making an appearance so we took our time to get up and get moving. We headed for down town Melbourne to see the sights and found a park for the rig down near Docklands Stadium. We caught one of the old style trams into the heart of town and did the tourist sites including Flinders Street Station, Federation Square as well as enjoying the wonderful range of old buildings that Melbourne has to offer.

There were people everywhere; it was incredibly busy especially after being out of the city for a couple of weeks. The town was dressed up for Christmas and there were a heap of activities to do, but we were on a pretty tight time frame so lining up for 1 ½ hours to see the Myer Window Christmas Display was substituted by the boys taking their turn at sitting on my shoulders and having a quick peep at each window. 

Mathew Flinders and his version of The Gator

After a late lunch we walked through China Town to the tram which does a full lap around the city. About 15 minutes later we were at Docklands but on the complete other side of the water to where the rig was parked. So we alighted only to realise that it was a dead end so we quickly hopped back on the next tram and were happily travelling along until again I realised that we were heading in the wrong direction. Fed up with not being able to get on the right tram it was decided by dictatorship that we were going to walk back to the rig. Jack mysteriously developed a sore leg and Sam lagged behind but after about 15 minutes we had navigated our way back thanks to Google Maps.

Our destination for tomorrow was Sovereign Hill at Ballarat so De did some research and found a free camp on a really cool app called Wikicamps. It list of heaps of free camps as well as caravan parks and things to do that can be found via maps as well as being searchable by towns. It also has a comments section and photos for each listing so you can get a bit of an idea of what it is like before you head there. After eventually getting to the site I noted that some of the comments mentioned very rough 4wd tracks etc; but others said it was fine. What we realised was that if you came in from the south, once you have completed the track, you should be ready for a start in the Dakar Rally. Fortunately it hadn’t rained so driving up a completely rutted road that was probably a 40% grade was possible......just. Izzy performed wonderfully dragging the Gator up the slope and onwards to the campsite. It was a  wonderful site set beside a slowly running creek. The boys got their bikes out and had a great time setting out a course that included some pretty serious downhill sections and creek crossings.

 

 

We were the only ones in the area and the silence and remoteness of the site was wonderful after a few nights in the city. We were visited by a mother duck and her 9 ducklings that were almost ready to leave the nest. Sam, with a couple of pieces of bread in hand became the duck whisperer and soon had a trail following him wherever he went. We had a camp fire and got to bed early to ready our self for a big day as Sovereign Hill tomorrow.