I don’t think I have ever heard so many or such loud trucks bombing along the highway as I did Monday night. It was insane! I enjoy camping but crikey this noise and lack of sleep is gonna make me crankyyyyyyy!! Still, how is it possible to be cranky in this beautiful country? So what was on the agenda for Tuesday? Continuing our journey down towards Melbourne.

The tent and car were packed up and we were on the road by 9am. Again, nothing we had planned at all other than seeking out a shower somewhere. What with not staying in hostels this time we would need to find free campsites with showers. First stop was the beautiful Lake Tyers a place of calm waters, soft sand and fish jumping out of the blue! Here was chilled for a bit before we moved on to Lakes Entrance and pulled into the beach. There was a play park, electric BBQs, a beach and plenty of picnic tables. To make it better the sun was glorious and there were showers!We whipped out our trusty cooker and toaster, and proceeded to make brunch. Again consisting of beans/spaghetti on toast. This time I actually had hot beans on toast! I was ravenous! We spent a good few hours here soaking up the sun and trundled off to the shower to clean after two days of feeling grotty!

Feeling refreshed we got back in the car and headed to Franklin River Reserve Campground which was a beautiful spot off the main road. On the way there I felt my top almost rubbing my mole on my neck. All of a sudden a sharp pain went through my neck and I looked in the mirror to find a bee had just committed suicide by stinging me. There is sat on my top. I told Nathan to pull over to a) remove the bee and b) pull the sting out that I could still see poking out my skin. What followed was some swelling, aching and a hell of a lot of itching! Thank goodness for antihistamine and bite cream!The campground was gorgeous. We pitched the tent just inside the camping area and watched the sun go down. This time, nothing woke me up but there sounded like there was a hog outside the tent as I was drifting off. Maybe I’m going mad and hearing things??????

Wednesday morning treated us with glorious sunshine as we de-camped ready for another hot, sunny day. We ventured to Wilson’s Promontory National Park first. We stopped off at a couple of viewpoints before we reached the camping area and turned back on the lookout for kangaroos/koalas/wombats!Not a single one! Every road we’ve driven so far has had signs saying “watch for animals” or “kangaroos next 35km.” None. Zilch. Zero. Not a single animal! I’d expected to see them in abundance. How naive! All we saw was a bloody bunny rabbit!

We continued driving down to Philip Island, home of the infamous Penguin Parade. By now it was getting colder and the wind was picking up. We got onto the island and saw the Philip Island Grand Prix Circuit.Here they hold the Australian Grand Prix, Superbikes, Go Karts, V8 cars and more. As we strolled in hoping to catch a glimpse of the Lamborghinis racing round the track, we settled for a long distance view as it was $16 each to view.There were several Lambos whizzing round the track. You could hear the purr of the engine as we exited to go to the nobbies.First of all we came across pyramid rock at the end of a fly infested boardwalk. To the right of it we were adamant we could see whales/dolphins playing in the sea. 1) there was a boat pointing directly where we were looking 2) it was disappearing under the water then coming back up. We don’t know if it was something or a rock but we sat there a good while trying to figure it out!We got to the end of the island and wandered down the boardwalk. The island in the distance is home to a large colony of Australian Fur Seals but it was slightly too far out of range of my eyesight to see them! It was a very pretty area despite the fact the temperature was starting to drop and the wind was piercingly cold.The next part of the journey saw us enter Hammond Camp Ground. Off the beaten track and away from a main road so hopefully a decent nights sleep would follow. What was even better? As we pulled into the camp ground, a family of kangaroos greeted us! The daddy was bloody huge staring us out as we figured out where to pack. I’m not kidding he was literally massive. Looked like he was injecting steroids!They got scared away and jumped the fence initially but soon came back to pose in the rain for photos!I was so excited that we had finally seen kangaroos in the wild!!! So friggin excited!! There were four of them including a baby! The ground was soaked so we decided to stay in the car instead of pitching the tent. We had the campsite to ourselves except for a French couple in their posh pick up with a tent on the roof!We had to get a kangaroo selfie right?? I mean who knows if we will actually see them in the wild again on this trip! Hopefully 😊! We set up camp in the car including putting towels and blankets against the windows to stop any light getting in.It was actually pretty cosy to be honest but I slept like a ‘V’ and it didn’t stay comfortable all night. Ok I say I slept, but again, I didn’t really. My hay fever had kicked in like a bitch during the day and that meant for the whole night it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest preventing me from breathing normally. Chuck in desperately needing a wee at 4am and fumbling my way through the blankets to the outside hoping daddy kangaroo wasn’t there waiting to box me, resulting in another sleepless, yet entertaining night…

Our friendly kangaroos were even there to greet us in the misty, horrible, wet, miserable morning…Baby Roo seemed occupied in the fire pit…

Until next time…