SUNDAY JULY 1     HOME TO MARONG

We didn’t leave home until 11.30. This unhurried departure was because the weather forecast had predicted fog, so we would give it time to burn off – in theory. In practice, the day was sunny with blue skies and just a little cloud.

As we headed up the Great Dividing Range from Yarra Glen, the driver remarked “Where’s all that fog you were talking about?” Answer – as we topped the Range – “Up ahead.”

There’s the fog…

We descended into thick mist that persisted almost all the way to Bendigo. It actually made the drive, that we had done so many times before, very pretty and different.

Took a lunch break at Yea, where John bought himself a pie and pastie. I only wanted a coffee. I walked Couey around whilst waiting for John to come back from the bakery. It was bloody cold!

Still misty beyond Seymour

Lunch over, it was back on the road for the familiar run through Seymour to Heathcote, where my coffee lunch necessitated a comfort stop.

The drive around the fringe of the Bendigo CBD was easy in the light Sunday traffic. Arrived at Marong just after 3pm.

Back into the Marong Holiday Park – our favourite. After discount, paid $34.20 a night for our powered site – the en-suites had been booked out. The very helpful man who checked us in suggested that – at this time of year – we’d be better off on one of their mulched sites, rather than grass. We took his advice. The site allocated was actually two sites, which meant that we could drive straight through onto it – and that we had plenty of room. It was in the closest row to the camp kitchen and amenities, so we could not really have asked for more.

The night was forecast to be a really cold one. I had an old sheet and mattress protector in the Terios and used those to cover the outside front and rear windows of the car. I didn’t fancy having to scrape off ice in the morning.

Inside Bus, I put up the solar screens onto the front and side front windows, for insulation. This was a fiddly job, even after I detached the GPS and tyre monitor from the front window. The camera that lived up behind the rear vision mirror made it impossible to slide the screen right up to the top there, so it tended to come unstuck again. I needed several attempts, all crouched up like a contortionist, to make it stick,

Dog was not impressed. At night, she liked to sleep curled up on the front passenger seat where she could look out the windows and “guard” Bus from the marauding rabbits. It was not so much fun when she couldn’t see out.

It was nice and warm inside Bus, with the little electric fan heater going. However, it was a shock to the system to venture outside, whenever Couey indicated a call of nature. We are going to have to get used to the colder winter nights of Central Victoria.