Today was the first day of our road trip. We had packed our bags yesterday and sorted out bedding and the food we thought we would need, or rather be able to afford and cook on one gas burner, and so in the morning we put on the last of the washing and went to get the van. It took several trains and a bus to get to the Wicked site, and was raining when we finally arrived. There were three vans parked outside, one had fish on it one had a red devil woman on it and the third had Chuck Norris drawn on it and ‘Chuck Norris doesn’t read books he stares them down until they give up the information!’ Which wasn’t funny for me as I had no idea who he was.
Luckily the guy had been planning to give us the devil woman van, called ‘Devilish’, and after a brief payment and a quick lesson on how to lift the bonnet – there wasn’t one you life up the passenger seat – a demo on how to turn the wooden structure inside from a bed to two benches and a raised table I was off. It was pouring with rain by now and Australians have their indicators on the right and windscreen wipers on the left, just the opposite way round to the UK, so I kept wiping when I wanted to turn and indicating when I needed to see.
We had forgotten the map but after driving around a bit and taking one wrong motorway and having to turn round and go back we spotted the Salvos where we had been buying things for the van and the pizza place on the corner. We decided one treat of pizza would be good as it was only $6 and would last us both lunch and dinner. We ate the pizza on the go legged it back home and put the damp washing all over the van to finish drying and the bags in the back then off we went. I drove first then after a few hours we swapped.
We passed the beautiful little town of Lakes Entrance today, we had nearly got there with James but had stopped short to see the wildlife area. The town itself was also very pretty and is apparently a big Aussie holiday destination.
We decided to make legal camp in a rest stop that night. There are many advantages to this. They are all along the major Victoria roads so you don’t have to deviate and get lost, they have an on site loo so you don’t have to risk the deadly animals in the bushes, they tend to be quite flat for sleeping and they have a lamppost and picnic area where you can cook.
The rest stop we chose was between Sale and Bairndale and when we stopped we had driven 260km, we would have gone further but we had run out of light and the Wicked guide said not to drive at dark because kangaroos are like rabbits and get stunned by headlights then when you hit them, unlike rabbits, they smash up the van. According to our dash board sticker ‘swerving to avoid a Roo is stupidity’ and if we do anything stupid to the van we don’t get another one.
The night was pretty chilly but we had two sheets, a duvet, an old sleeping bag and a blanket so after a while the van got nice and toasty. We decided to get an early night at about 9pm as we wanted to be up early to drive on.