AT LAST !!!!

At last we have arrived in Geelong, a bit earlier than we thought, but that was due to the weather.

We were in a nice little stop-over in a place called Girgarre, which is a small town in the Goulburn Valley in Victoria. (Yes we finally crossed the border into Victoria!!)

Girgarre had a population of 660 people, but back in 2011, the Heinz factory that was there, closed its doors, and over 146 jobs were lost, so now the population is just 190.

There is a small post office that sells bread, milk and newspapers as the supermarket is also closed, and there is a shop?? come tin shed, that sells just about anything and everything to do with country life, like tractor parts......you know....man stuff, which came in handy as we had blown an indicator light on the van!!

There is a farmers market that is held once a month, and also a restored Town Hall, and that was about it as far as shops go.

They have also made available, an area where you are allowed to camp and have provided lovely clean loo's and solar hot showers. You are allowed to camp there for 4 days and they ask for a deposit for the shower key which they refund when the key is handed back in.

Its a lovely little town, and we were planning on staying for the 4 days, but it was just so hot, and the flies were just terrible being that its also farming district.

It was so hot, we couldn't eat, our poor fridge could not cope, so getting a cold drink was impossible, and i lost quite a bit of food out of the fridge because it couldn't keep cool enough. 

At 10pm at night, the temp was still 34 degrees, and in the caravan it would have been about 40 !!!!


We did go for a walk around the houses, and came across this lady that was putting up her Christmas lights in the garden. There seemed to be a few, and we got talking to her and we said we would come back when it was dark to see her lights.

Well.....i am sure that this house could have been seen from the moon!! Every inch of garden space had lights of every kind, she even had lazer lights pointing into the huge trees....it was a terrific sight.  Very colourful.  She does it every year....and people give her more every year...and she arranges them all by herself. 

So we walked back to the van and it was impossible to sleep, so being as the weather forecast for the next day was a lot warmer.....we headed off for Geelong as we knew it would be cooler.

So here we are...with our family.

It was so good to see everyone, and especially our two grandsons Byron and Noah. 

I didn't get to take any photos of our last stop at Girgarre, it was just too hot, but we went for a drive, just to get away from the heat in the van about 7pm in the evening and we came across a small town about 7klm down the road called Stanhope, with a population of just over 500.

There is a factory there called Fonterra, which collects some of the country's milk, and produces speciality cheeses for export.

There was not a lot in the town, but it was nice and green and seemed a bit cooler than where we were camped!!

This is a bush reindeer ! Lumps of wood , straw and red tinsel !!

I don't think they work too

hard here......pretty casual hours  !!

So now we are here at the Geelong Showgrounds, all settled in ready to spend Christmas and the New Year with the family. 

I will continue to write, and post photos, for our very special lady in England, so that she will always be included as part of the family Xmas. Love you Bett xx