MARCH 22-29     HOME TO MARONG AND BACK (1)

Set off at 12.30 on a hot and sunny day.

The journey followed our usual route from the eastern suburbs: through Yarra Glen, Yea to Seymour. For once, John negotiated the Yarra Glen roundabouts without taking a wrong exit.

We needed a brief stop at Yea in order to tape shut the fridge door which had yet again opened of its own volition. Really do need to sort out some sort of better fastener for it.

Just after Yea came up behind a Victorian registered Galaxy caravan. One of those drivers who travelled slowly where there were double white lines, then speeded up as soon as there was any possible passing area. He didn’t have decent side mirrors either, so maybe simply drove without taking any notice of what might be behind him.

Lions Park Seymour

A late lunch stop at the Seymour Lions park saw dog disgrace herself, yet again. She has the ability to unerringly find pools of muddy, stagnant water, from a great distance. John’s faith that she will come back when called was again unfounded. Actually, she did come back – eventually. He had let her off the lead to have a ball chase and use up some energy. She took the opportunity to wallow in the only puddle in the otherwise dry creek. Wet, muddy, totally happy, very smelly dog resulted.

Dog in disgrace

The country was very dry. We saw almost no livestock. It had been a long time since there had been useful rain in central Victoria. We would perhaps not be seeing the Bendigo area at its best, but that could be a good thing as dry conditions are more the norm than the rule in those parts.

Dry country

Leaving so late meant that we caught the tail end of the school traffic as we followed the GPS dictated route through Bendigo, which basically just skirted the edge of the CBD. If this was what passed for heavy traffic up here, I’d take it any day. Around Bayswater and Lilydale it would be considered light!

We set up at the Marong Caravan Park where we had stayed before. Marong is kind of an outer suburb of Bendigo these days, with some new housing estates being built.

I had not been able to secure an en-suite site for the whole week, so our first three nights were spent on a very pleasant powered site, actually two sites being treated as one large drive-through site. It was close to the amenity block and the excellent camp kitchen and there was plenty of room for dog on her tether rope. It was relatively easy, after that, to relocate to an en-suite site for the next four nights. Our week cost $264.60, after discount.

On site at Marong

The park was increasingly busy in the lead-up to the Easter break. This provided us with some interesting spectating.

There were several caravans of brands I’d not seen before, including one new-looking off-road style van, predominantly bright orange in colour. It would certainly be hard to discreetly camp in the bush in that one – no blending in with the surroundings. On the other hand, it would be hard to get lost, coming back from the loo in a caravan park…

We watched one caravanner who had to go negotiate a change in site, because he didn’t feel able to back his 24 foot van onto the site he’d been allocated. I thought it was a perfectly adequate site. His next one was not much different and he had to enlist the help of one of the park staff to get onto that.

Another new arrival, onto a drive-through site, cut the corner too finely and his van had a too-close encounter with some tree branches.

Then there was the very new-looking large caravan, with a slide-out extension at the side. The owner obviously wanted to maximize their outside living space, so parked right at the side of his site, before extending his slide-out. It was just bad luck for other park patrons that this then blocked the adjacent path to the central amenities area. Actually, in the dark, there was a real risk of someone walking into it.

Another new arrival got set up, then insisted that park staff prune some branches from a willow tree that was hanging beside his site – immediately!

The travelling public can really be an ugly beast, some of the time.

Watching these various antics over our time here, had me wondering how many would-be travellers visit the caravan shows and select their new treasure, with lots of interior space, all the bling, and no thought to practicalities like towing the damn thing – and fitting it onto park sites?