Sunday Feb 18, 2024
This day started out pretty ordinarily. Darren put into his GPS a camp site that was in between Flamingo Beach and a hut near Mansfield. He didn’t realise that the quickest way was going to take us up a lonely mountain road. After driving back through Sale, we headed Northwest, away from the coast on a journey that the GPS said would take 3 hours. It ended up taking us over 7 hours.
The road started out like some of the others, but then we started remarking to each other about how lovely the farmland was. It was just so beautiful. Rolling hills with rivers and forests and lush grass. Then we started going higher and higher. The forest began changing. It started with shorter trees, then changed to taller and taller trees, getting more and more majestic looking. Through the trees we could see the valleys below and some farms, then we couldn’t see through the trees anymore. We passed quite a few cows, who had free range of the place, even on the road which had turned to gravel. We passed only 3 other vehicles over the entire trip over this road. We passed through several logs that had fallen on the road and where cut away.
Then the trees began getting shorter again as we reached the summit. We stopped for dinner at the top and got some great photos, that did no justice at all to the beauty of the place. We realized that we were actually crossing a section of the Great Diving Range, which is a very large range of high country that runs along the eastern side of Australia.
On our way back down the other side, we found Bob’s Pipe Bath. Darren had read about it on a camping app that mentioned this track, so he was looking for it. When we found it, we realized that it was an actual bathtub on the side of the road with a tank next to it full of spring water. There were some hoses for siphoning the fresh water into the bath. So, naturally, when we found it, we all got out, filled up the bath with fresh water and washed up in it. First Dad, then Mum, then Boy, and then Girl, all had a bath, complete with shampoo and soap. We needed it! The kids ate blackberries on the side of the road while they waited for their turn. It was a little brisk, but we weren’t sure if we could light the fire under the bath since sometimes there are fire bans in Australia.
We thought this was the end of the adventure for the day as we were nearing the campsite. But just after sunset, in the dusky light we came across a large log fallen over the road. There was a large branch that was stopping us from crossing under the log with our caravan. So, we got out and Darren climbed the tree and chopped off the branch with an axe he brought along. Then, we carried on. We finally reached Granny Flat Reserve at 9:30 pm. Girl had fallen asleep already. We quickly set up and got everyone tucked into bed!
wow, that was some amazing adventure!!