Bright

Hello to all

We have spent some time with Justin, Lee and the kids while we sorted some caravan things out. We now have two batteries in sequence in the van which should provide us with much longer battery live when we are free camping, which , by the way is what we are doing tonight.

We left Justin and Lee's just on lunchtime today driving for a while before we stopped for a bite to eat. We had decided to go over Mt Hotham and stop somewhere near Bright or Wangaratta for our first night. We are parked just outside of Bright and before Porepunkah. There is one other van here also, and though we are quite close to the road we are secluded from the road by trees.

What magnificant changes of scenary we have seen in just the 4 hours of travel we have done so far. As always the drive out of Bairnsdale, through Sarsfield and Bruthen is just beautiful. At the moment it is lush and green and the scenary is stunning. Swifts Creek and Omeo too are looking lush and green, but then the closer you get to Mt Hotham the more the scenary changes. The mountains are large and steep sometimes barren, sometimes covered in dead trees, looking almost like you could be on another planet.

Generally it looked pretty quiet through the ski resorts all but for work that was being done in the various ski resourts preparing for the upcoming snow season. New Buildings being constructed and I imagine with a very tight deadline. It's hard to imagine the difference the scenary will undergo in the next couple of months. A fall of snow could happen at any time now, and once it does it is impassable for cars and caravans, so we were fortunate not to have to go the long way round.

Harrietville and Bright were picturesque to say the least. The autumn colours of orange, red, and yellows were stunning, such a pretty time of the year.

The weather has been changeable also. The day was lovely and warm when we set off and though I didn't check exactly what it was it would have been around 23 degrees. At omeo the ambient temp was 19.5. By the time we got to Hotham the temp had dropped to 12.5 and again by the time we had reached Bright the temp had risen to 18.5. And whilst I thought it would be a freezing cold night it 's not, in fact it's quite mild. Tomorrow morning might be something else though.

Remember back when I said there was something I had wanted to say but I couldn't remember what it was. well now I do remember.

When we bought the new Van our existing generator was not big enough to run the air conditioner. So Ken started looking for a second hand Honda 3 KVA on EBay. He found one ,Placed the bid and won it. The Generator was at Drouin, which is a couple of hours from Bairnsdale on the way to Melbourne. Ken called to make arrangements to pick it up. The owners were away but their mother would be there when we called to collect it.

I stayed in the car and Ken went in. When the door was opened Ken realised that we had met the women before on one of our visits to Genoa. She and her husband were very impressed with our Ssang Yung and intended to look into getting one as they were not happy with their own vehicle. What a coincidence to run into her this way. Her life had changed rather dramatically since we had met her. She and her husband had separated, he had gone back to New Zealand where they had come from and she had stayed here in Vic. Their caravan was on the market and when it was sold she intended to get a motor home and continue on her holiday. By the sounds of it there was no chance of reconcilliation. She wanted to continue travelling and he did not so he went home and she stayed.

The other coincidence was that she gave us the receipt from its original purchase and guess what it was purchased in Orange where I grew up and where my parents still live.

No more news for now. The battery is getting low.




Love ken and Lyn