THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY     TORQUAY

It was a great looking morning, with little wind. Warm enough to need to wear shorts.

The Cairns people in the big van opposite found it difficult to manoeuvre out, with the narrow roads and tight corners of this park, and clipped the side mirror of a parked car. Very embarrassing for them.

Then I noticed that another van that had departed much earlier, had left a rubber doormat behind. Rather than leave it for the next arrivals to find, decided to bring it over to our site – but displayed it prominently on the outside table, in the unlikely event they returned for it. That’s the sort of thing you don’t realize you’ve lost until you are setting up in the next place. So, we may have come by a very useful mat.

Drove to the Torquay bike shop, looking for replacement tyres for my bike. The man there explained that tyres with a continuous line down the centre are the smoothest to ride on bitumen, and as we do a lot of that sort of riding, that was what I wanted. But he didn’t have any we liked. I think my current ones should last a while yet, anyway.

Went on to Anglesea, where we viewed Alcoa’s power generating plant, for their Geelong smelter, from the outside. Drove alongside the open cut brown coal mine that feeds it.

Took some dirt roads through the forest, so John could further explore the capabilities of the Truck. Then retraced our route. Could see a real maze of tracks going up the hills.

In Anglesea, bought rolls and scrolls for lunch, drove west, out to Eastern View, and sat in the car park there, eating lunch overlooking the sea and beach. We could see Lorne in the distance, and Aireys Inlet lighthouse the other way. Blue sea, good views – very pleasant.

Drove back to Aireys Inlet and then out to the Distillery Creek picnic area. From there, walked the Ironbark Gorge walking track circuit – it took us an hour and a half, at a fairly leisurely pace. The walk is listed as 2.2kms but it felt a bit longer. It was an easy enough track, but quite hot and still in amongst the trees and scrub. There was some variation to keep it interesting: ironbark forest, then scrubby land, then into a small gorge, where the creek was dry. It would be lovely in spring. Then there was a fern gully and we were back into the ironbarks. Along the way, we spotted a Southern Scrub Wren – a new bird for us.

John wanted to drive some more tracks, so we followed gravel roads, using the guide in the Great Ocean Road book I had. Supposedly, there were stops along the route to observe different aspects of recovery from the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires that were so destructive in these parts. But we didn’t do those. Eventually found ourselves up the back of the Alcoa coal mine again, which was not where I thought we were! So we cut back to Anglesea and on back to Torquay.

Got diesel, in view of our trip tomorrow. 72cpl.

Tea was an omelette, fries, leftover risotto, salad, with bananas and ice cream to follow.

While it was still light, did preliminary pack up, including taking down the awning. Sorted the awning poles and the big tent poles, which are interchangeable; it has dawned that we can, therefore, leave some of these at home. More weight reduction.

John spoke to another traveller with a TV aerial that looked like a Deeper Image one. He recommended it – said it came from Hardings and cost about $150. It has booster plugs in it, inside the van, so there is no need for a hole through the van. Another man told John they are available from a shop in Spencer Street, in the city.

I had an earache for much of the evening – no idea why.