Winter Camping in Australia

It’s not like winter camping in Oregon or Connecticut that’s for sure! For one thing the seasons change at the beginning of the month here, not at the equinox like in other parts of the world. So June 1st is what they call the first day of winter. Quite unlike Oregon where the first day of summer ins’t until July 5th! Then there’s the lack of actual freezing temperatures and snow in most parts of the state. The hills to the northeast of Melbourne do get snow and the highest peak being Mt Buller (pronounced Bulla) is 1850m (6070’). A respectable height east of the Mississippi, but barely into the foothills of the Rockies and Cascades mountain ranges of the west. On this particular weekend the temperatures were in the mid 40’s at night and around 60 during the day. More like a nice fall day to most of you not winter at all.
It’s the Queen’s Birthday weekend. Not her real birthday and not even my birthday but a long holiday weekend none the less and I’ll take any chance I can get to get out of town to a national park. On Thursday evening my friend Dean (and No, he’s NOT my boyfriend) decided to come along for the adventure after much pleading on my part. We left for our 3 hour drive on Saturday morning with hope of making it to Wilson’s Promontory National Park by early afternoon. Being a holiday weekend all the good spots would be taken early and I had my mind set on a small group of sites tucked into the trees and away from the main 200 tent sites line up in rows out in a open field. The day was over cast and rain showers had been predicted. As we set out I informed Dean that Tommy’s heater fan recently crapped out and we would be without heat for the weekend. Not to worry I brought lots of blankets and for me it’s not really that cold here. I don’t think I’ll be saying that next winter.
Our drive was pleasant, Dean giving directions from my new Melways (a 8x11 map book of the entire metropolitan area used by literally everyone here) and me driving down the freeway. I was very happy to have someone coming along with me. The banter was trivial, caddy, insightful, deliciously fun and endless. Just like 2 gay guys can do when no one else is listening. Of course we missed our exit and it took several more before we even noticed. As we made our way from the big city through the smaller suburbs and finally into the tiny towns of rural Victoria the natural beauty surrounds you and reminded me of why I like to get out on the road so much. We stopped in Leongatha for lunch, some groceries and booze. Contemplating on the sexuality of all the hot guys in this little town in hushed whispers so not to get our asses kicked. We arrived at the gate house entrance to the park about 1pm obtained our visitor’s permit. Then drove the remaining 25km to the tiny town of Tidal River. Which is really just a general store and the ranger station in a single building surrounded by family style lodges, the tent sites and RVs. Along the way we saw some of the damage done by the fires back in March and our first glimpses of the Indian Ocean. We did manage to get the a camping spot tucked into the trees, away from most of the crowds. Being the last spot it was next to the toilets and along the road. Which at first didn’t seem that great to Dean but I informed him of the unwritten camping rule, stating you don’t cut through someone else’s back yard and now we have our own private short cut to the facilities. While the road gives us something to look at as the people stroll by. I pulled the truck into one side of the spot. Strung a tarp over the top and attached it with bungee cords to the nearby trees . Then sewed another tarp to one side making our little home in the woods more private. Immediately the locals started coming for a visit. We got to see several beautiful Rosella birds. A member of the parrot species. These bright red and vibrant blue birds are quite accustom to people and know how cute they are . Several birds landed on the trees and then made their way closer and closer to us, resting a short 3 feet from us and then patiently waited for us to feed him something. Of course I fell for it completely and gave them some salt and vinegar rice crackers we were snacking on. This type of Rosella is very common outside of the cities and the bright vibrant colours are always wonderful to see so close up.
As dusk approached (around 5:30) you could hear the calls of the Kookaburras in the trees. These large members of the kingfisher family sound more like howling monkeys than some bird. One came within 5 feet of us A little later in the evening 4 of them perched themselves in the bare branches above our heads and made their calls for about several minutes.
We were also visited that evening by a native creature I have heard about and seen many pile of poo from on my various trips. Most notable my Cradle Mountain Adventures from New Years. The elusive, only to me, cute cuddly, vegetarian with nasty claws a Wombat! Another camper noticed him walking down the dirt road as I tried to get pictures of the flock of Kookaburras and pointed him out to me. This plump burrowing marsupial came plodding along through the scrub brush right into our camp, Looking for a hand out too. He drew quite the crowd as all the children young and old from neighboring sites came into our area to see him. Dean and I were just sitting down to some hot cocoa and we think the smell may have attached him. There are signs in several places telling campers not to feed these cute furry guys. So this time I actually followed the rules. ( I know my mom and Phyllis just had heart attacks) After dinner Dean and I took a little walk around the camp grounds and came across another wombat or maybe even the same one, it’s hard to know for sure. This time we were able to capture some more photos. After our stroll I lit up our site with my camping lantern. This national park doesn’t allow campfires so we had to make the best of the evening by layering up with clothes and settling in to our chairs with good books. I’m currently reading The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, an international best seller, telling the history of the convict settlers here in Australia from 1787 until 1868. Very interesting reading for those book worms out there. Of course I had my glass of vodka and Dean sipped on a beer. Around 10 pm the time had come to hit the hay and to spend the first night sleeping in Tommy the Tank! Now the kids I bought the truck from were in their 20’s and used a 3” foam mattress to sleep on. As a test I thought Dean and I would give it a try too. BIG mistake and I should have seen that one coming. 3” of foam is not enough padding for even the new lighter version of myself and after those 3” was just plywood base. It brought back memories of living in the van with John way back in 1991! I’m WAY too old for that now and need more padding between my bones and the hard wood surface. So while the night was warm it was spent tossing and turning trying to alleviate the soreness on what ever side was against the plywood. The one GREAT thing about Tommy is the LARGE moon roof just behind the front seat that as you lay in bed your able to stare out at the sky and on this particular night at the clouds. Now I have had much worse nights sleep in the passenger seats of several rental cars since moving here so this wasn’t all a bad night.
As with most camping trips we were up fairly early. I cooked Dean, Corina’s famous campfire egg scramble on Shelia’s Coleman stove and we set out on our 19km (11.8m) hike to Sealer’s cove. The hike starts out half way up Oberon Mountain on a “No Through” road (dead end) and at a trail head where many other trails begin. Dean and I were there at 9:45 am and the car park (parking lot) was totally full already and we ended up parking several hundred yards back down the road. So there was NO chance of us getting lost and not able to find another person close by to rescue us. The trail starts out in a section that was burnt by the recent fires. This makes it easy to see where the trail is leading and incredible sight to see how quickly mother nature starts to regenerate the forest. I think I have mentioned before on my trip with Dean to the Brisbane Ranges National Park about how some of the plants here rely on fires to help them germinate. The Grass Tree (vertical photo) is such a plant. This single shot shows how quickly the tree can regrow it’s top “grass” like leaves even with it’s trunk blackened and crumbling. Beyond the Grass Tree in the forest you see sprouts of new vegetation on the Gum trees. In many places the ground covers and tubular plants are poking up from the rocky soil and reaching for the sky. In the other photo you can see the Tree Ferns have already regrown their foliage and have that bright green color of new life you rarely see here.

In the next photo you get an idea of how dense the forest was in this area. Dean and I walked past several spot where the fires missed. Strange to see pockets of this “old growth” surrounded by such stark blackness. You can see on the trees that the fire doesn’t always burn the entire tree. Some areas only have burn marks up 2/3 of the trunks with brown leafy tops. A sign that the fires were moving incredibly fast. This section of our hike would have been completely different 3 months ago. We made our way over Windy Saddle, the high point on the hike at 300m (985’), then down towards the ocean the ecosystem changes into a wet lush marshy coastal forest. Another 5 plus kilometers and we emerged out of the forest on to the beach at Sealers cove and the Tasman Sea. This untouched pristine curved beach stretched out about 0.5 kilometer (0.3 mile) in both directions. You could see peopledotted at both end enjoying the view after the long walk. Dean and I decided to just plant ourselves right there where the trail emerges and have our snacks. The one thing I noticed here was how loud the small waves where as they crashed onto the beach The video clipped I loaded isn’t even half as loud as some of them were. Dean and I rested here for almost an hour. We fed the seagulls some rice crackers, chatted with other hikers and soaked up the beauty around us for as long as we could. The hike in took us the better part of 3 hours and with sunset coming around 5:30pm this time of year we needed to start our trek back so to not be doing it in the dark. As always the hike back gives you a different perspective and you see things you missed on your previous trip. Mainly being the ominous clouds that kept threatening to rain on us all afternoon. But luck was with us and we made it back to our campsite about 5 minutes before the rain started.
As I made a hearty stew for dinner the rain just kept coming down harder and harder. Our tarp canopy held up quite well and allowed us to enjoy our evening without having to hide in the Tommy like most of our neighbors had to do in their tents. Unfortunately, the rain also kept the wildlife away too. Dean and I spent the evening with a few drinks and deep in conversations about men, life and our place in the universe. The drinks helped with this as you can imagine. About 9pm the long day had caught up with us and we climbed into Tommy. After last nights foam and plywood sleeping arrangements I wised up and inflated the air mattress for us to sleep on too. This reduced the head room we had, but increased the comfort level greatly. The rain came down all night long and the wind eventually whipped the tarps into a tangled mass. But the bungee cords help keep it all from blowing away. It was the driest night of downpour rain camping I have ever had and made me VERY glad to have Tommy. In the morning the rain had subsided for the most part and we managed to take the tarps the rest of the way down and pack up the remaining items quickly. Our plan was to find a hot breakfast back in the little town of Fish Creek. About 50km (31 miles) north of us. Since we had to keep the windows closed all night the inside of the vehicle got rather damp. Dew was running down the inside of the windows and with no fan on the heater we had to wipe away windshield several times so I could drive. Dean used some of the emergency toilet paper and I used my sleeve. This didn't work very well but we we're only going about 15 kph in the campground and needed to be done about every 30 seconds. Because out breath kept fogging it back up. We tried to open the windows to equalize the temperature inside and that helped a little. Dean played with all the buttons on the dash while I tried to drive us out of the National Park. I flicked a switch to turn the rear defroster on and all of a sudden the heater fan began to work. Now we don't really know if there was a connection as both Dean and I were fiddling with things. But once we got it going neither wanted to turn it off. 3 hours later we were back in the city and I had an hour of cleaning to do to get everything unpacked. My first camping trip with Tommy had gone very smoothly. More than a week later the heater fan is still working just fine. So keep your fingers crossed for me there's a lot of winter driving left to do here.

Stay tuned for the next blog update will be coming shortly. I’ve had another little adventure on Saturday the 12th to let you all know about and will start working on that one right away.

Happy birthday to Mike Wrobleski on the 16th and Phyllis will be 40 something on the 26th. I need to get the one in a few times before her big day.

My apologies if there's someone I forgot!