Melbourne - Day 1

Thursday, 24th May

We left Hobart in lovely mild, calm, sunny weather. Unfortunately, this only lasted as far as Ross – this is when the rain and wind commenced. The wind did not abate at all, only became stronger! We stropped beside the cemetery at Longford for lunch and discovered the chicken in the frig was frozen solid. Mayonnaise sandwiches with a very thin slice of ham was the order of the day.


We unhitched the caravan at Les’ sister and drove through to Penguin to visit his mother before returning to Devonport, collecting the caravan and meeting Denise and Barry. We seemed to have a bit of communication problem, as we were both waiting outside different hotels to meet! No problems checking in and with security checks, and we were able to queue up behind each other to board the ship. Of course, we had to wait nearly an hour before boarding, so Denise popped the kettle on for a cuppa (the joys of having a caravan in tow). When the vehicles in front of us moved, we followed of course, straight onto the ship. It was at this time that Barry decided to check that all was well in his en-suite and found his car and caravan were left standing on the grid and Denise was a little agitated!

The sailing was a trifle rough and the ship made the most horrible metallic banging noises all night. Thought of Titanic did pop through the head. We docked on time and were off within five minutes; had no trouble getting to the Big 4 caravan park at South Dandenong.

The morning was spent with a visit to the Breakaway outlet and a quick stop at another shopping centre (someone “forgot” to put his jumper in the car and was getting cold) for a necessary purchase.

We had lunch with some people from our East European tour and spent a rather sociable afternoon with them. When we rang them, Trevor immediately asked if Cat was coming to visit as well. When we were shown to the dining table, Cat was already sitting up with his bowl of soup and a glass of wine!

Fine and sunny here this morning, cloudy and cool this afternoon.