Sorry it has taken so long for us to update this blog, we have slipped into holiday mode very quickly and have been a bit slack!!

Anyway, since last time.... we stayed at Lavers Hill for two nights and then headed north. The weather had been terrible at Lavers Hill and it was not getting better in a hurry, so we abandoned our plans for camping at Cape Otway and decided to go inland away from the windy coast. We travelled through Colac and on to Ballarat, then to Clunes. Clunes is a nice little town with a few old buildings from the 1800's. We drove around town, had lunch in the bakery and went for a wander along the streets. From Clunes we drove to Maryborough and parked ourselves at the Maryborough caravan park. The park is right next to a large lake (Lake Victoria) in town, but unfortunately there was an embankment between the campsite and the lake, so we could not see the lake from our camper. This was actually to be an advantage as we did not leave the wind at the coast as we had hoped, instead, we had 3 days of wind that was fresh enough to test the strength of the poles and ropes on our annexe, the wind gusting to 60km/h at times, so we had some protection behind the embankment. We couldn't complain though, the sun was shining every day and we were not at work.

The next day, Friday, we paid a visit to Coiltek. This is a shop dealing exclusively in metal detectors and everything gold prospecting. Kathy had been wanting to buy a metal detector and hopefully find us lots of gold on our travels, and this was the place to buy it from. So, after much discussion we purchased a secondhand SD2200 detector. Coiltek run metal detector training courses and offer a free course with every purchase of a detector. We were lucky enough to be able to do this course the very next day. It was a full day of learning, from how to read the land, what rocks and vegetation to look for, to setting up and using the detector. Very informative. The bloke running the course took us out in the afternoon to a place just outside Maryborough to try our luck at finding some gold. The day before they had run a course and were detecting in this very same spot, and a guy found a nugget of nearly 3 ounces - about $4,000 worth!! Lucky b*****, we found a couple of old .22 rifle casings and rusty nails...

The next day we had a drive around the area, drove out to a couple of small gold rush towns that have almost vanished, went for a walk up the tower at Bristol Hill and looked at the view over town. We also visited the Maryborough railway station which is huge and well worth a look. It was built in the late 1800's and has recently been restored.

Monday morning saw us pack up and head off again. We wanted to find somewhere in state forest where we could free camp and had a place picked out of the Camps book near Dunolly. The drive there was a bit of a round about way, as we wanted to look at Maldon on the way to Dunolly. On the way to Maldon we drove to the top of Mt Tarrengower and climbed the tower for an amazing view over the surrounding landscape. A sign at the tower informed us that Mt Tarrengower is the centre of Victoria. Rather than drive back down the road we came up, we chose a dirt track leading down the other side of the mountain. This turned out to be an easy 4WD track through some beautiful bush and brought us out right on the edge of town. We stopped at Maldon for lunch, and once again did the tourist thing and wandered around town. Maldon is a very well preserved town straight out of the 1850s, the main street is lined with the original buildings, most with rusty roofs and even the old lead downpipes. It was nice and quiet when we were there, but you get the impression it would be a tourist destination on the weekends, as there are a lot of cafes and restaurants in the old buildings. After Maldon we went to the free camp site, only to find it was not what we had expected, and was hardly flat enough for a camper trailer. As it was still early we decided to check out a few other camps along the way to Inglewood. We ended up at Inglewood at about 3pm and parked in the caravan park for the night.

So, we are here at Inglewood. Apparently there is a bit of gold to be found around here, so we decided to stay for a second night and have a look for a huge nugget. After over 5 hours and 3 different places detecting and digging for gold, we have a bounty of two .22 shells, a lead roofing nail or rivet thing, and a rusty nail. No gold. Oh well... it's a good excuse to spend a day in the bush, driving down narrow tracks and walking around. We'll keep looking, it's out there.... apparently. As I write this it is our second night at Inglewood. We might stay a third, or we might head for a nearby state park for a few days and find some gold there... or rusty nails. We'll make up our minds in the morning, but we'll be sure to let you know what we end up doing.

Hope you are all well.

Paul and Kathy.