TUESDAY 6 JANUARY     BALLARAT

I had a great night’s sleep – the van’s innerspring mattress is really comfortable. It was about 9am when I got up; John slept in a bit longer.

I wandered up to the nearby shop and bought a newspaper. Definitely have a cold, but it is bearable.

John unpacked the table and chairs off the roof rack, so we were able to have a late breakfast outside, under the awning roof. It was sunny, but a little cool – rather unusual for early January.

It felt like a good day to try out a ride on the bikes. John was not too stiff, after yesterday, and we do need to focus on improving his leg. Rode around the large Lake Wendouree, across the road from here. This was a mix of cycling on walk/ride paths, and on roads, but there was not too much traffic on these. We rode 10kms around the lake, then rode up to the Wendouree shops for rolls for lunch and some fruit. It was a most enjoyable bike ride – not too hot. John managed quite well.

On the lake we saw some ducks, later identified from our bird book as musk ducks – first time we’ve ever seen these, so it was recorded with the date and location beside the appropriate picture in the book. Handsome specimens they were, too.

I filled our lunch rolls with vegemite, cheese and pickled onion. Went well with apricots and nectarines to follow.

Drove around and found a bowls club, where John booked himself in for a game on Thursday afternoon. Then we drove on to the centre of Ballarat and went to the Information Centre, where I picked up a lot of reading matter. We had parked a little distance away, and John had to try to run a bit to get across the road – his hip complained after this.

John really wanted to drive out to Haddon, where he taught at the one-teacher school for a year in 1965. It was a long time ago, and much has changed in the area since then. We took some wrong turns, ending up at Ross Creek, from where we cut across to Haddon. He found the site – the old school has been demolished, and little remains of the school house that was part of the site, except for some outbuildings. We wandered about and took some photos.

John followed some more memories, driving us around some of the back roads of Haddon, ending up at the house of the lady who was his School Council President. She was suitably amazed to see him again, asked us in for coffee, and even phoned a couple of her children whom John had taught, to come round and see him! It was a great chat session for well over an hour; these people have done some travelling in Australia and so can relate to what we are setting out to do.

We then found the new Haddon School, about a km away from the old site, on the other side of the village. The move took place as recently as 1990, so the new school is very modern and definitely multi-teacher, these days, as the area has become really an outer suburb of Ballarat and is much more densely settled.

Back at the van, was time to cook tea: poached fish, potatoes and salad. Had tinned mango for dessert. I have brought away a lot more tins than we intend to travel with – to use up what we had at home. There are tins in the van, and a plastic crate of same in Truck! Will have to use them up quickly and reduce some of our weight.

The evening was quite chilly. There was no trouble using up the evening hours – by the time tea was over, the dishes done and coffee/tea drunk, it was nearly 10pm, and shower time.

Today’s explorations covered 68kms.