Camille’s Big Adventure

  I camped at Mersey Creek National Park where I enjoyed a quiet spot right next to the river. It was beautiful and peaceful. I took the morning slowly, choosing the spend most if it reading by the river before packing up and heading out. I didn’t really have an intention of where I wanted to go next, other than east to the main road so I could make my way south. It was gently raining so I figured I wouldn’t have too many stops. As I drove I saw a sign for a National park with cave tours and I thought “what a great way to spend a rainy day”. I stopped at Marakoopa cave and chatted with the ranger and got booked on the tour. We saw lots of great topography in the cave with rock formations of curtains, straws, terraces, and a curious, stalagmite that had a V at the end. I’m the many caves I’ve visited I’ve never seen a stalagmite like that and it had a box around it to protect it, and the ranger said it was really unique. As we went deeper into the cave the formations changed from a ...

My next stop would be cradle mountain national park. An absolute stunner. I drove an hour into the mountains stopping at waterfalls and view points along the way. The temp has dropped since the storm and into the elevation to a chill 50 degree high and a low of 32. I picked up some gloves at the visitor center and set up my tent and drove into the park for sunset. At sunset is the wombat stampede. On a trail there are none and all of the sudden you look around and you realize all the rocks I. The distance are wombats! They are so cute, and generally quite unbothered. Because the shuttle service ends at 6 and sunset is at 7 there were no other people out there. Just me and 25 wombats wandering though the prairies. I even saw a mom and baby which was sooooo cute. I saw a quick flash of fur and I wasn’t really sure if I was it at first. I just saw the mom, but I had a hunch and I sat on the boardwalk and watched and after 10 minutes the tiny baby came out. It was climbing all over its mom...

  The next place I would call home is black river Campground at Peg Beach. It’s on the north west coast of Tasmania a 30 minute drive from a tourist town called Stanley and about an hour drive from the West Coast known as the edge of the world. I got to the campground quite early the first day Easter in Australia is a five day weekend Good Friday the weekend Easter, Sunday, Easter, Monday and Easter Tuesday because it’s such a long weekend. It’s a common holiday getaway for Australians and since it’s the end of summer early fall for them, it usually means camping out. So this reason I got to the campground early, and I got lucky finding a solo spot which when people arrived I wouldn’t be crammed together with others, and I set up my little tent. the first day I mostly just hung around. The campground went to the beach ran to the town 30 minutes away to pick up some grocery and rested a bit. About an hour before sunset I headed out to the beach and was shocked that there was nobody ...

  The next morning, I headed out to Geelong where I would catch my ferry to Tasmania. I spent most of the day just kinda hanging out along the beach and take a little snooze in my car. I think the city is actually a decent sized city but everywhere I had paid park in and I just couldn’t be bothered to pay, and then have to move my car every hour so I ended up just going to the beach which was really lovely and spent most of the day hanging out before my late night ferry. I got fish and chips for dinner before heading over to the ferry around seven. The ferry itself doesn’t depart until 930 but I got there early so that I could just get on the boat and get my car loaded up on the boat and relax and get ready for the long cruise across the straight. The cruise ship I mean fairy, but really cruise ship was huge. It has 10 stories for four people and six for vehicles. The top three is where the people are large portion of them are rooms because you can rent a room for the 12 hour voyag...

  The next stop on my journey was my friends house in Kynton. I might Gabby when I worked in New Zealand and we became best friends and very close and yeah have kept in touch every sense so when I told her I was coming to Australia. She told me to let her know when I was in her area and it was really great. I caught up with her and another friend of hers who I met there as well named Alice and her partner Mimi and we just had a ton of fun hanging out and getting each other again after all these years, and yeah it was just generally really good. We had dinner at a really good Indian food place and sat in inflatable, hot tub and drink and enjoyed the first evening. My second day we got in the hot tub with our coffees first thing in the morning chatting and laughing before heading out on the town going for gander around the different cities in the area. This area is known to be a mountain range in Australia but it’s very flat for a mountain range and it’s quite funny to have them. Cal...

  After Melbourne , I headed out to the north west to Grampians national park. It’s such a interesting little mountainous area. It kind of just comes up out of nowhere. So for about two hours I drove through the eucalyptus, Savannah tape ecosystem, big widely spaced eucalyptus, trees with some no grasses that are going to seed pretty yellow and dry Very low, rolling hills. But then arriving at the Grampians, all of a sudden, you see in the distance, a large mountain range that seemed to come out of nowhere. The sparse eucalyptus canopy is traded for a dense eucalyptus canopy, but the tree is are quite different. You end up with their close space together a lot more variety and types the dominant now being this really shaggy bark eucalyptus tree in the lower elevation areas. That’s as opposed to the wider areas with which have this really smooth white bark on most of the trees in the savannas. Reaching the Grampians was such a nice rest after a month of being pretty busy. I decided ...

  Returning from vietnam, I went back to Melbourne and stayed with my friend Hope and her partner Scott. It was really lovely getting to stay with them. They are such a wonderful couple and have a lot of really cool friends and it was just a really great experience. One night we went to an indigenous music festival, which was really neat. Lots of contemporary indigenous artists were playing different music from some alternative contemporary to opera. It was really cool to hear the variety and the meaning behind it, and hear all of these indigenous women’s stories. Generally, it was just really enjoyable. I actually like Melbourne more than most any other city I’ve visited, especially that size. I think it might at least partially be the people I was with, but it’s got kind of a small hipster feel being quite a large city of. I think they said 5 million people. it was really easy to walk around the neighborhood where Hope lives and easy to catch trams trains and buses, which is gre...