Kooyoora State Park, Victoria 8.12.10

Hello  mooovers & groovers;   Lou here, I hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer here in Aussie, or if you are from the UK you will be shivering your bum off and up to your arse in snow; Ha!  You see now why I gave the UK the El-bow and came to the sunny country;  Oz.  (oztralia) as they say it here.

Enough of my gloating,  we are in a very wet and windy Victoria still, we have just left the Grampian Mountains and Matt and I  are currently in Bendigo.    Very nice town Bendigo, a mini version of Melbourne, with trams and lots of lovely old buildings;  but sad to say the on street parking has to be paid for!  Is nothing free anymore? But at $1.10 an hour, its not too bad;  I am currently in the main Bendigo Library, we are sneakily downloading some of their DVDs they have for loan;  Well, Matt is while I have a quick scout around the charity shops.   I have just left the local Vinnies Op shop and nearly fell over when a dress I was interested in was priced at $30!  What?!

Anyways enough of my rambling;  Matt is taking over and I am off out to see the other shops and leave him to tell you about our adventures in the mud last night...

matt here;

Our camp spot at the Wyperfeld State Park, the site was massive and we were the only ones there, the night we stayed there it rained sooo hard, it felt like we were under a waterfall and we quickly ran outside and had a shower under the deluge.  It was quite a liberating yet strange moment to stand outside at night, naked in the middle of nowhere in one of the biggest storms to hit Victoria... 7.12.10

Matt with the useless tiny shovel we had on board.  wed 8.12.10 Koorooyong state forest - Vic.

We have managed to travel over 3/4 of the country and cover 35,000km, get two flat tyres and of course now we get bogged...

When IT (SHIT) HAPPENS you either laugh or cry and we took the option to laugh.

This occured at a campsite just outside of Bendigo in the National Park, I even walked over the ground to feel for its firmness, before parking, but, with the vehicle weighing over 2.5 tons, that would account for nothing would it?

After trying to dig my way out, I realised we were going nowhere fast as the water just kept on seeping under the tyres and made it even worse, making the ground turn into mud and eventually the rear axle was sitting on the mud. Lou even dragged 2 big flat rocks over to try and put under the tyres, but no good; so I asked Louise to call the NRMA and they sent someone out within 30 minutes and towed us out.  There was an old couple in a caravan nearby and they came out in their raincoats to watch the drama.  We were so lucky it did NOT piss down too much as the area has been flooding here and there and the sky was a bit black.

We drove the HELL OUTTA THERE as fast as we could and went down the road to stay on firmer ground thank goodness!  (it said no camping at the car park down the road, (in the nat park) but we decided to risk it.)

If it had to happen, that was it for us on this trip.  All we need to do now is run out of fuel... NOT - touch wood!

I even tried to build a drain for the water to drain away to no avail and even put rocks under the tyre but the vehicle was too heavy.

Oh well! Louise, could you please call the NRMA?

Ok all by for now,  new blog hopefully in a few days;  Oh and by the way, if you found our site by looking for another site, please stay with us!  We will cheer your day up;  no worries...

Matt & louise