The Spirit to Melbourne

Saturday, 15th June

After a fortnight at home, which gave us just enough time to catch up with family and friends, weed the garden and load the caravan, wish Aidan a happy 2nd birthday, listen to Emma perform at the Hobart Eisteddfod and then say goodbye once again, it was time to hit the road and head for Devonport and the overnight crossing to Melbourne.


The ship didn’t appear to have a full load of passengers and with only about twenty caravans lined up on the wharf, we only had a short wait before we were able to drive aboard and find our cabin. Fortunately, the mill pond conditions at Devonport seemed to continue all the way to Victoria – it would have to be the smoothest crossing we have ever had. We were alongside the dock in Melbourne by 6.00 am, but were not called to our vehicles until 6.30 am; we than sat and waited, and waited. There was obviously a problem with a vehicle at the front of the vehicle deck, we would not normally wait thirty minutes before driving off.

Even at 7.00 am, it was still extremely dark as we decided (wrongly) to allow Doris to find our way to the freeway, instead of taking our usual route along the bay. Up to her usual tricks, Doris decided to save us twenty metres by using back streets until we revolted and forced her back onto the major roads. Next obstacle was a three metre under pass! With the caravan being 2.9 metres high, it was a sudden halt in the middle of the road, hazards lights flashing, while we decided to slowly take the risk and continue driving, with Les hanging out the window, looking up and back. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic about at that hour of the morning. After that, it was an easy drive along the freeway to the Big4 Caravan Park at South Dandenong.

We had to wait about ten minutes for reception to open and allocate us a site, then it was a beautiful reverse onto site, a quick set up, power connected and the heater turned on! Next item on the list of jobs to do: make the coffee. The remainder of the day was spent with relations – lunch with my aunty and cousins, before visiting their new house on the Mornington Peninsula.

It has been a very cold, raw day in Melbourne and we are looking forward to some Queensland sunshine.