Phillip Island

 

5 days on Phillip Island was a pleasant way to begin the latest school holidays. We booked and stayed at 'Jerebeth Cottage' in Cowes which was a great base for touring around the island. Clean, modern and comfortable... we were even welcomed by a basket of home grown eggs and a block of chocolate! The complimentary coffee was also a lot better than the average instant you get in such establishments!

Over the course of the 5 days we got and discovered as much as we could. We'd pre-purchased the Phillip Island Nature Parks 3 parks pass, which got us to Churchill Island, the Koala Conservation Centre and the famous Penguin Parade.

 

There is a little used - perhaps not widely known - dirt road linking the Nobbies and the Penguin Parade. Along this road is some of the most spectacular coastal scenery you could find anywhere!

 

 

 

 

These geese have the best views!

 

 

Cape Barren Geese have been listed as endangered, and a breeding program has been instigated on Phillip Island which appears quite successful as we saw them everywhere! There were also quite a new chicks of various ages... these young ones were on Churchill Island.

 

Also on Churchill Island we loved seeing the herd of Scottish Highland Cows! They are very cute indeed, especially the calves.

 

At the Koala Conservation Centre we saw lots of koalas high up in the trees, but were fortunate with one which was down low and was wide awake and on the move - unusual as they sleep for 20 hours a day.

 

Not far from The Nobbies is Flynns Beach which features the remnants of an old jetty which looked spectacular in the late afternoon sunshine.

 

The kids had a lovely afternoon on Flynns Beach, playing in the sand, making sand castles and playing a bit of beach cricket. 

 

We hung around for a nice sunset at Flynns Beach...

 

 

 

As well as general admission to the Penguin Parade, we joined a family tour with a ranger which took us behind the scenes a little and find out more about the penguins and their lives! The kids loved this, asked lots of questions and learnt a lot leading up to the evenings parade. It also meant we were able to get excellent seats for the parade. The night before, over 1000 penguins came ashore. We rugged up and enjoyed the waddling spectacle, then spent some time around the boardwalks watching them go by - listening to the various noises they made - including the cries of the hungry chicks in their burrows. Unfortunately no photos are allowed of the penguins... so this one is from their website.

 

 

In Cowes we enjoyed a couple of walks out on the jetty including one evening after fish n chips.

 

Of course, Geocaching featured on this trip - here we found our 200th cache which was marked with much celebration! We found most of the 'Not Road Kill' series which consisted of various types of rubber / plastic animals hidden around the island.

On the boardwalk at Ventnor we found another cache and left a couple of 'travel bugs' to continue their journey around the world.

 

On the way home we had lunch in San Remo and then a round of mini golf at Pirate Pete's at Grantville.

Temora to Griffith

After the sunset and fly past we were eagerly anticipating our day at Temora Aviation Museum. Today was one of their 'flying days' so we were in for a mini air show. The weather had plans on spoiling this... but the people organising the flights did a great job in ensuring each of the three aircraft got into the air between showers. In the end, the last flight didn't happen until around 3:30pm, although it should have been wrapped up a couple of hours earlier.

 

 

One huge hangar housed a bunch of old planes which we had a good look at.

 

The first plane in the air was the Lockheed Hudson Bomber. Smoke billowed as each of its two piston engines fired up - which is what they are meant to do, being old oil burners... literally! The plane got into the air and did several low fly pasts.

 

We then spent some time in the engineering shed where we met the pilot of the Sabre (he'd flown it last evening and would fly it again today). He is a Flight Commander in the RAAF which many years experience, flying all manner of fighter jets! He was a down to earth, friendly man who gladly had a chat to the kids when they looked in the Sabre's cockpit. Ethan had a barrage of questions for him which kept him on his toes!

 

Daz had been looking forward to seeing the Spitfire - he has a metal one given to him by his grandfather. He's never actually seen a 'real' one, let alone seen one fly. Temora has two of them - the only flying Spitfires in Australia.

 

She got into the air and also did a great display for us!

 

It did not look good for seeing the sabre in the air again as the rain began again, but the patience and flexibility of those running the day ensured it did get into the air!

 

The Hudson looked good sitting on the tarmac, stormy clouds behind and reflected in the puddles!

 

After feeling quite cold, but having loved the day, we walked back to the caravan park. It's the only time we've camped close to an airfield. We had a plane parked out the back of our bedroom!

 

The next morning we hooked up and left Temora, driving on Burley Griffin Way in a westerly direction. We stopped at Ariah Park, a small town that promotes itself as the 'bowsers and peppercorn town'. There were several old petrol bowsers lining the main street, with peppercorn trees down the middle.

 

We spent about 17 km's on the Newell Hwy before continuing on the B.G. Way through some small communities, where we also stopped for some geocaches. We had lunch at Moombooldool, then came across a giant tennis racquet in Barellan - which celebrates Evonne Goolagong who comes from there!

 

We checked into a caravan park in Griffith, home for 3 nights. The next morning we went and explored City Park which features an excellent playground which has two claims to fame. Firstly it is in the top 10 of playgrounds in NSW. Secondly it has the highest rope climbing apparatus in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

After lunch we went 8 kms out of Griffith to do a tour of Catania Fruit Salad Farm. It's been a farm for 102 years. We got to see the original homestead and hear how it was built, spent some time in the 80 year old shed, and heard all about their prunes, grapes, citrus, pecans, wines, honeys... Was interesting and informative. Back at the homestead we got to taste a range of products. 

Junee to Temora

 

Our time in Junee continued, with a morning spent geocaching all over the town - this included a trip to a lookout hill, the cemetery, a couple of parks and even a little maze. The picture below shows Ethan holding one of the hiding spots, which is inside this fake rock!

It being a nice sunny day after the early morning fog, we went for a walk along the Federation Trail near the caravan park, the kids enjoyed a scooter ride. Later in the afternoon we went to the 'Broadway Museum' - nothing to do with the famous Broadway of New York - simply the street the old 1914 hotel was on that has been turned into a museum of all things old and Junee! We then had another wander around the town centre, loving the old architecture of the station again and the many old (and large) verandahed pubs with lacework trimmings.

 

Back at the caravan park we had a nice reflective sunset off the water of the small ornamental lake we are camped by.

 

After packing up ready to move on to our next destination, we went and visited Monte Cristo - a beautiful old homestead overlooking Junee. It is apparently, the most haunted homestead in Australia which made the smallest two children unsure about wanting to go in! We did go in, they were fine, we did not see any ghosts! It has been wonderfully restored. The furnishings are big and heavy looking, the wall papers, drapes and carpets are quite dark, adding to the eerie feel of the place!

 

The grounds were nice, and included some old carriages in the stables as well as the other outbuildings associated with a well to do property such as this - the servants quarters. 

 

After our time at Monte Cristo, we left Junee and headed towards our next destination - Temora which was only 58 km's away. So we stopped and found 3 more geocaches on the way, including one at a quiet little place called Junee Reefs - site of some gold mining many years ago. Now it's just a community hall. We enjoyed lunch there.

 

Once in Temora, we set up camp at the Temora Airfield Caravan Park, literally a few metres from the airfield! A couple of Cessnas came in and landed, taxiing almost to our rear window! Spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the very impressive Temora Rural Museum. This place had a huge variety of exhibits, much of it outside.

 

 

We had visited nearby Cootamundra about 8 years ago and looked around Don Bradman's birthplace. Today we found his home for his first 3 years - its an old timber slab hut that has been moved and reconstructed as part of the Temora Rural Museum...

 

 

Only opening in March of this year, the museum also houses the NSW Ambulance Museum and contains a bunch of ambulances from different eras. This was a highlight of our time here.

 

There was an old school house which the kids enjoyed role playing in...

 

We got back to the caravan around sunset - the sunset across the airfield was magnificent. While enjoying it, a loud roar announced the arrival of a Sabre Jet - out for an evening fly. Over the next 20 minutes or so we were treated to some acrobatics, fast fly overs at low altitude, all with the back drop of a colourful sky!

 

Tomorrow we are visiting the Temora Aviation Museum, our main purpose in being in Temora. It is also one of their flying days, so providing the weather is good, we should see some more planes in the air!