We crossed the border on Tuesday 18th November and just travelled around to a few places before we needed to be in Warragul where we are leaving the van and car while we are in New Zealand.

We ventured into Ned Kelly country both in Glenrowan and also Euroa where Ned and his merry men held up the Bank and they took 2500 pounds. We had a couple of nights in roadside stops along with the trucks as free camping is pretty hard to find. We did however, come across a lovely spot by the river just outside Alexandra.

When we were in Queensland we met a lovely fellow who was travelling around in his motorhome who comes from Kilsyth in the Dandanong ranges. We had the great fortune of being able to spend 2 days with Barry and his daughter. The area is fantastic but very fire scarey!

When we left Barry's we travelled south to the seaside town of Tooradin. We arrived on Sunday and were hoping to camp at the boat ramp (cheap as usual) and fortunately found 1 spot to park the caravan and car as the carpark was full of boat trailers and cars. Later that day when they had moved out we were able to camp on the lawn. What a great spot! although the second day was typical Victorian wet weather.

On Tuesday 25th November we arrived at Warragul with Leslie and Russell. They were fantastic and took us around the area. We had a full day touring Marysville, the town that was completely destroyed in the Victoria Black Friday fires about 5 years ago. While in Marysville we visited a fantastic garden where the owner who is an artist sculpted all the statues (over 100!) for the garden. Some were damaged in the fires but he has restored them and made others. (see the photo album). The fellow also lost his house in the fires and the insurance wouldn't pay out but fortunately a great group of artists from WA fundraised over $75 000 to help him out

Today we have travelled into Melbourne on the train, had lunch at Southern Cross station, caught the skybus to the airport and then the shuttle to our motel. Tomorrow we board the plane at 8.45am for Aukland. If we can, we will do more blogging in New Zealand but this will depend on the availability of wifi. Stay tuned for the next lot of blogs be they in NZ or when we get back into Oz in February. Merry Christmas! We will be fortunate to have Steven travelling with us in NZ during the christmas time.