Jan 5th – Lakes Entrance to Merimbula, or Once Upon a Time We Had Fifth Gear and Then We Didn’t...

So we left Lakes Entrance and left a little bit of ourselves behind – in the form of a chunk out of the driver’s side rear of the van. (I was going to use near-side or off-side, but in common with almost every other female I know, I can never remember which is which. I vaguely suspect that near-side is actually the one far away from the driver, so not near at all, but as I’m also fairly confident that the terminology was invented by a man, this would make perfect sense...) Anyway, as Nick was turning us out of the very tight site we had been in, he clipped the Nissan Patrol beside us.

Obviously the Nissan Patrol was fine (I think they’re made from girders... non-Scots will be very confused by that), but the 3.3m high, 6.8m long house-with-wheels came off worse.

So after much %^&%$$ and £”£$%+, we set of for Merimbula – about a 270km drive.

Had some very beautiful countryside to keep us entertained as we headed east along the south-east corner of Australia – it was a real treat to see green again after the dusty brownness of Geelong, and also lovely to drive through a rolling, hilly landscape with great views.

Saw lots of signs reminding drivers to watch out for wildlife, but sadly didn’t clap eyes on any at all – am still desperate to see my first wild kangaroo but no joy so far. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true – saw two flat kangaroos (and a great deal of other flat fauna) by the side of the road – we have been warned by lots of people about driving at dawn or dusk because of the danger of hitting a kangaroo, but in this case I’m thinking the roos came off worse...

Nick and I have also solved one of life’s great mysteries – Who ate all the pies? The Australians did. Never had any idea before we came here that the national dish of any country could actually be pies, but it is. We have started looking out for the Hot Pies sign in every town we go through, and no matter how small the town, there’s always a pie to be had. Quality usually assured by association with an elderly female relative of some description (Aunt Betty, Grannie Gertie etc) but sometimes no such ploy is necessary – I think the sign we saw for Hot Emu Pies speaks for itself.

So it’s all going swimmingly, when as we are heading along an otherwise unmemorable stretch of road, there’s a clunk of disturbing volume, but everything seems to be fine, until Nick tries to select 5^th gear. And it’s gone. No warning, no Dear John letter – just upped and left. And on a stretch of road between Orbost and Eden where there is pretty much nothing except National Parks – most towns we would have been lucky to find an inhabitant, let alone a Ford service centre...

So we decided to push on and see if we could reach Merimbula – 5^th wasn’t the top gear, so Nick managed to survive with 4^th and 6^th and we made good progress towards our first stop at Malacoota- about 30km off the main road, but recommended to us by a friend and it didn’t disappoint – the pics at the start of this post show the crazy gang getting rid of the cooped-up-in-a-van feeling by wave jumping in their underwear... As you do.

We made it to Merimbula in the late afternoon and were really impressed with the town – and with the park – these pictures show

the kids in the pools (main and kiddie) but aside from this, there was also a huge jumping pillow and another pool and a shop and cafe on site – and the view from our site was absolutely stunning – these pictures show the kids sitting at tables directly behind our van, and Nick took the arty sunset shots from our site.

The only downside at Merimbula was that we didn’t have a powered site – i.e. one where you can plug in the water and electricity direct to the van, so although we have tanks for the water, it does mean things like no a/c as this runs off 240v only. So I am blaming this for the meltdown on our first night in Merimbula – I think the children pushed one too many of the wrong buttons and before you could say infanticide, divorce and suicide, Nick was threatening to drive us all back to Geelong and I was wishing he would...

But it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do, and the next day we had a fantastic day in and by the pool and Nick also got the van looked at at the Ford garage in Eden. As far as I can gather, the conversation went something along the lines of ‘Yup, you’re right – no fifth gear mate. Gearbox is going to need to come out mate. Not something I can do for you here mate. Too busy – it’s Silly Season you know... You could probably drive it to Sydney. It’ll probably make it... mate...’