Australia

Back in Robertson

- Robertson, Australie
backinrobertson

We are back in Robertson, where we have spent 3 days at Rhondda’s farm. Like last time, we did a lot of work!

The apple season is over now, so on saturday, we have picked the last apples and removed the nets (the apple trees are protected from the birds by nets). On sunday, we have cut, crushed, and pressed all these apples (a few thousands!). At the end, we have been part to the production of around 200 liters of cider! We even had to do the last pressing by ourselves (and we didn’t have any problem with the machine this time). On monday, we have helped Rhondda to move all the cider’s bottles because there will be some renovation work in the cider house.

We have worked a lot, but once again, we have been well rewarded. Rhondda (a really good cook!) prepared us delicious meals (with fresh vegetables from her garden), always going with a (few) glass(es) of good cider. On sunday evening, we had the chance to meet her husband Paul, with whom we had a great dinner. To finish the week-end, Rhondda took us to show us around on monday. The weather was sunny, so we have been to the coast, to eat a good and fresh fish ‘n’ chip and have a nice walk.

Once again, we have really spent a good time at Rhondda’s farm, and she seemed glad to see us again too. She even offered us to come back again if we are going back near Robertson!

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Bungendore > Bowral

- Bowral, Australie
  • From: Bungendore, Australie
  • To: Bowral, Australie
  • Distance: 160km

New trip with NSW Trainlink to Bowral, where Rhondda is going to pick us up. Until now, our trains were always on time, but this time the train is delayed. So it can happen even in Australia!

Can we compare to France?

Not at all! For many reasons:

  • When we had bought the tickets, we had been informed that the train would maybe be delayed due to some work on the line
  • We recieved an SMS a few hours before telling us that the train will be 60min late
  • We received another SMS telling us that the train will be only 45min late
  • NSW Trainlink called us on our mobile phone a few minutes before the train arrival to check if we were in the station and to tell us that the train was arriving.

Good service, isn’t it? After that, the trip was quite good, and we finally arrive in Bowral 45 minutes late, and after havig taken our diner in the train!

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WWOOFing at Millpost farm

- Bungendore, Australie
millpostfarm

We are back from a week of wwoofing in Bungendore, near Canberra.

We were at Judith and David’s farm, a 60 years old couple who manage a wool growing farm (Merino sheeps). They run a “small” property of 1100 ha and 2500 sheeps (that seems huge for us, but apparently this is quite standard in Australia!). In January, sheeps are sheared and the wool is sold all around the world. They also have a few cows, some choocks and ducks, dogs and a veggie garden. There is always a lot to do in that kind of farm: building a new house for the family, maintaining paddocks, planting new trees, …

During our stay, we could help for some different jobs: picking-up some veggies, chopping wood, weeding, … This really was a farming experience!
During this week, we had the chance to discover Judith and David’s lifestyle. They are trying to live simply and to be as much self sufficient as possible: eating mainly what’s from the veggie garden, cooking on a wood stove, reusing or recycling everything that can be. The environment at the farm is really peacefull and you can have long walks in the property.

This really was an interesting experience. Unfortunately for us, it rained most of the time so it seemed sometimes dificult for our hosts to find us some work. But the rain is really good for the farmers who often suffer from severe drought, so we were happy for them!

We are now going back to Robertson. This name rings a bell? Of course, this is were we had our first wwoofing experience. We are going back to Rhondda’s farm for three days, to help her at the cider house.

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+ + Melbourne > Bungendore

- Bungendore, Australie
  • From: Dunkeld, Australie
  • To: Bakery Hill, Australie
  • Distance: 148km
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  • From: Bakery Hill, Australie
  • To: Melbourne, Australie
  • Distance: 114km
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  • From: Melbourne, Australie
  • To: Bungendore, Australie
  • Distance: 764km

Wow, this trip from Dunkeld to Bungendore was quite an adventure! Yesterday we arrived in Melbourne in the morning after taking a bus from Dunkeld to Ballarat, and then a train from Ballarat to Melbourne. We left Melbourne at the end of the day around 8pm. We took a night train to go to Bungendore, where we are going to do some wwoofing.

To sleep in the train, we are trying a new technic. Marie is lying on the fllor and I try to lie on the seats. Not so bad. We manage to sleep a bit in the train!

The funny part of the story is that this train doesn’t go to Bungendore. We have to stop in Goulburn (at 4:10am!) and wait for the train to Bungendore (at 9:55am). We have the chance to sleep on the carpet in Goulburn’s station! Finally it was not so bad, but we will be happy to sleep in a real bed tonight. If we have a real bed! When you are wwoofing, you don’t always know what you can expect!

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WWOOFing in Dunkeld

- Dunkeld, Australie
dunkeld
  • From: Melbourne, Australie
  • To: Dunkeld, Australie
  • Distance: 261km

We are currently at Harry and Iwona’s place for our second wwoofing experience. Harry and Iwona manage 4 Eco Lodges in the Grampians National Park. This park is located a few kilometers away from Dunkeld, Victoria.

An unusual WWOOFing experience

Usually, Harry and Iwona are hosting wwoofers because they need help to maintain the property, the walking tracks, and to clean the Lodges.
But this time, we will have different jobs! Actually, Harry and Iwona have just bought a bakery in Dunkeld. This bakery will be managed by Sauvanne and Romain, a french couple (former wwoofers!) who are settling down in Australia. They have travelled around the country before, and worked in hospitality field. Several times, they stopped by Aquila Eco Lodges and they became close friends to Harry and Iwona. And now, they will manage Harry and Iwona’s bakery. Nice story, isn’t it?

So, on March 3rd, Harry and Iwona got the keys of the bakery. They want to open it again on March 19th. As you can imagine some work has to be done to renovate the place, and we can definitly help with that! Here are our tasks:

  • Sanding, painting, and vernishing the furniture
  • Checking the ventilation system of the bakery (for Marie)
  • Helping to build a new website for the bakery (for Edouard)
  • And certainly a lot of other things, we’ll tell you!

We have been here now for 4 days, and the renovation is going well! We’ll stay until the opening so we’ll be able to show you the final result!

Eco Lodges

We should told you a bit more about the Eco Lodges.
They are offring the guests an eco accomodation nestled in the Grampians National Park. Lodges have been designed as a contemporary showcase for living in harmony with the environment. The lodges employ the latest technologies available to sustainable building, such as use of rain water, solar power, self composting waste treatment and are widely recognized for their low environmental impact approach to development.

Harry, wildlife carer

Another thing we didn’t really expected (but which we enjoy a lot now!) is that Harry is also a wildlife carer! He’s taking care of the kangaroos around the property. He also have in the house a nursery where he can take care of kangaroos and joeys found injured on the road. Plenty of kangaroos are hoping around the house, mostly in the morning and in the evening (for breakfast and dinner!). We have the chance to follow Harry while he was feeding them. An amazing experience!

Last important thing: Harry is the son of a baker and he bakes every morning some delicious bread (for the lodges guests and for us too!). Yummy. Marie took the opportunity to learn more about that and to catch some tips!

We are staying a few more days. We’ll give you some more news before our departure. Here are some pictures:

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+ Apollo Bay > Melbourne

- Melbourne, Australie
  • From: Apollo Bay, Australie
  • To: Geelong, Australie
  • Distance: 113km
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  • From: Geelong, Australie
  • To: Melbourne, Australie
  • Distance: 75km

Hard to wake up sunday morning to get the 6:50am bus to Geelong, from where we will catch a train to Melbourne. Anyway, it is always a pleasure to be back on the great ocean road… even better for sunrise !

We even made a friend on the bus: Adrian the bus driver! We were seating on the front row of the bus so we spent the whole trip talking to him. That was very nice. So nice that he even invited us to visit him if we are coming back to Apollo Bay!

From Geelong to Melbourne, the train is crowded… Good thing we booked our tickets a long time ago and have reserved seats. It doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone…

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The Great Ocean Road (& Walk)

- Apollo Bay, Australie
12apostles
  • From: Princetown
  • To: Apollo Bay
  • Distance: 70km

We are back from our trip on the Great Ocean Road! This famous road is located in the South-West of Victoria, a hundred kilometers West of Melbourne. 243km long, this road stretches between Torquay and Allansford.

As usual, we have tried to explore the area by public transportation. We enjoyed most of the Great Ocean Road during the bus rides. But we haven’t ride the whole 243 kms. We’d preferred to focus on the Great Ocean Walk: a famous 100km hike between Apollo Bay and the majestic 12 Apostles.

It was difficult to organize ourselves to do the whole hike with our big backpacks in less than 5 days. Also, we were not really ready to experience camping in Australia. So we decided to stop in Princetown and in Apollo Bay and to do some day walks from these two points. Apollo Bay is the start of the Great Ocean Walk, and Princetown is almost at the end, a few kilometers away from the 12 Apostles.

1st day: Princetown > 12 Apostles > Princetown

18km return to see the 12 Apostles: amazing cliffs with a collection of limestone stacks (don’t try to count, there are not even 12 of them!). The weather was a bit cloudy but still this place is splendid!

Surprise of the day: a tiny snake (a baby?) on our way back to Princetown.

2nd day: Princetown > Gables lookout > Princetown

24km return to reach Gables lookout. Honestly, this is not a place that you need to visit, but it was as far as we could hike from Princetown in one day… The walk to Gables lookout is not really interesting either so you may not want to go there, but we were happy to walk and take some fresh air!

tigersnake
Meeting of the day: A tiger snake!

Surprise of the day: Two “not tiny” snakes. The first one ran away when he heard us and we hardly had the time to see it. But the second one was not frightened. It was an Eastern Tiger Snake: a highly venomous snake, but not aggressive… All right, but from now we will stay focused on where we put our feet!

3rd day: Rest

In the morning, we took the bus from Princetown to Apollo Bay. As the rest of the day was rainy, we took some rest.

Surprise of the day: All the coffee places are closed between 4pm and 6pm (too bad, we would have been tempted by a coffee and cake!)

4th day: Cape Otway > Apollo Bay

For our last day on the Great Ocean Walk, we wanted to see as much as we could. So we hitchhiked to Cape Otway, where we started our hike back to Apollo Bay. After these 28 kilometers we were really exhausted but we definitely enjoyed our day. We could see beautiful landscapes (beaches and forest) and a lot of wildlife!

Meeting of the day: A koala!
Meeting of the day: A koala!

Surprise(s) of the day: kangaroos, a koala, a snake again (unidentified), and a black wallaby on the track. We definitely feel in Australia!

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+ Melbourne > Princetown

- Princetown, Australie
  • From: Melbourne, Australie
  • To: Geelong, Australie
  • Distance: 74km
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  • From: Geelong, Australie
  • To: Princetown, Australie
  • Distance: 192km

Let’s go to the Great Ocean Road! First stop in Geelong, a lovely place south west from Melbourne.

Then we enjoy a wonderful bus trip on the Great Ocean Road while heading to Princetown where we will stay for 2 days to do some walks around

V-line trains and bus (state train network in Victoria) are very nice. A pleasant trip!

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Melbourne – Part 2

- Windsor, Australie
melbourne-beach

Here we are, leaving Melbourne tomorrow after another week in St kilda.

This week had been quite calm :

  • Jogging and stretching under the sun at Albert Part (to the F1 fans, this is where the Melbourne Grand Prix takes place)
  • Walks in the animated neighbourhood (Chapel st, Fitzroy St, Carlisle St)
  • Walks and sunset watching at St Kilda beach

It confirmed our first impression of Melbourne. Even far from the city center, we found the same atmosphere in these very pleasant streets with lots of coffee places and restaurants. Full of life!

Quick anecdote: we had a TV in our room. We are not big “TV watchers” but one night a good movie was on. We thought it would be great to watch! The movie was actually great but we had to endure the very annoying and too frequent TV commercials. It was a real nightmare… I am not even sure we will watch another movie on australian TV again!

To finish with good news, Edouard bought a small travel guitar! It will be great to fill some of our time-off with music.

Here are a few pictures of our stay in Melboune. Enjoy!

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