Freebie Fun!

When you don't have a full time job to go to every weekday or a full time salary to pay for movie tickets, balloon rides or other holiday fare, sometimes you need to use your imagination to find fun things to fill your day. After travelling around for a while now and staying at a different Aussie destination each night, Luke and I have decided that every Aussie traveller needs to pack along a few added extra's to keep them entertained cheaply.

Here's our suggested 'Fun Times' travelling kit:

-Tennis rackets and a few balls. A lot of caravan parks have their own courts that campers can use free of charge.

-Ping pong bats. Similar to the tennis thing, most caravan parks have a table tennis table but it costs around $2 for a ball from the park office. Save your bucks by buying your own bats and balls - our set was from K-Mart and set us back a tiny $8.99.

-Push bikes. I know this is a tough thing to take for some, but our bike rack from Repco was $110 and was the best investment we made before taking off on our trip. It folds down so we can get to the boot without taking the bikes off and it means we can leave the van behind and explore the towns we visit on wheels. Don't forget your helmets!

-A deck of cards. A pretty obvious camping must-have. You never know when it's going to rain for a week.

-Snorkel and googles. Especially if you're heading coastal. There's only so much swimming you can do and it's fun to mix it up by exploring the rockpools and inlets from below the surface.

The list could go on and on... There's been a few times that we've envied other campers who cart around canoes, kayaks, surf boards, small boats etc. But you have to draw the line somewhere and these things you can usually hire for the rare times that you're enthused enough to want to give them a go.

And of course, it always helps when the town that you're visiting provides it's own list of free activities for you to wile away your day doing. Take the beautiful coastal town of Anglesea for example. It's just an hour from Melbourne on the Victorian coastline and is the perfect getaway spot for couples, friends and families alike. Not only does it have a super fun inlet (where the river meets the sea) for people to play, fish and boat in, the beaches are gorgeous, there is bike tracks all over the town, the BIG Four caravan park had a free full sized tennis court and we also discovered a tailor made mountain bike park with jumps, dirt tracks and plenty of opportunities for some major crashes just minutes from the town centre.

Look at that smile on Luke's face! He's 27 going on 7 but I admit, after I built up the courage to try one of the runs, I had a ball too!

Yours in the great outdoors,
Odette

Tourist Time

I know the long Australia Day weekend has just past and there are some lucky kids who's parents have pulled them out of the first week of school for another week of holiday's before the year begins again, but seriously, driving into the carpark of Torquay's famous Bell's Beach the other morning was like pulling up at Ikea in Sydney's Western suburbs. One word: packed. Although, I can see why so many tourists and locals alike, all flock to the famous break.

Home to the world's longest running surfing comp, the Bell's Beach SurfClassic, which attracts surfing big guns like Kelly Slater each Easter, Bell's is a beautiful beach. Long, uninterrupted waves pour in from the horizon and would-be surfers pour in just as fast from near and far to try and catch a few.



Our kombi ride drew a few stares from fellow tourists (and we weren't the only ones driving a VW) - but the surfing stereotype ended with the van, I'm afraid. The last time Luke took to the surf was at Curly Beach back on Sydney's Northern Beaches and let's just say when a fellow surfer emerged from the water with a mighty big chuck out of his leg and blood oozing everywhere, I crossed my fingers that my husband's wild board riding antics weren't involved. But, alas, Luke came out of the water not long afterwards and pretty much told me to run for the car as he had just accidently run over a mean looking local on his borrowed mal board. Luckily we survived the incident but in the interest of safety for all those who like to ride a few waves, Luke now prefers to surf the web.

We soaked up the swell at Bell's for a while and then decided to head to a less crowded stretch of sand for a swim ourselves. And at $37 for a powered site for our last little piece of caravan park grass, let's hope the crowd dissappears back to the cities where they came from quick smart, otherwise we'll have no choice but to stick around Torquay until Easter, so Luke can enter the Bell's SurfingClassic and win us a fortune so we can continue on our adventure. Or we may be home earlier than we think!

Yours in the great outdoors,
Odette

Pop Goes The Tyre

Just a few days after our visit to the kombi mechanic and you'll never guess what happened. Well, maybe you will, as you've already presumably read the title of this post! But let me entertain you...

We were cruising down the Midland Highway on our way from one Victorian country town to the next (Bendigo to Daylesford), when one of our tyres went 'BANG'! But firstly, there's something I really must explain about hearing your tyre burst whilst in a kombi.

Driving a kombi or even being a passenger in one for that matter, demands a great deal of patience. Mostly because a kombi is about as far away from the picture of driving silence that you see on TV ads for the latest Volvo on the market as you can get. Simply said? Travelling in a kombi is a noisy experience. Of course with no air conditioning, the wind is rushing in through every available window, you have the radio on maximum volume trying to make out what Dr Karl is explaining about the reproductive cycle of camels on Triple J, the motor is humming rather loudly in the background and now we have the annoying voice of our own little lady reading out street names from our new Navman car navigator. And all this before you even attempt to make conversation!

Anyway, so you can see how driving along the freeway and hearing a loud bang, might take a while to register. Luckily our minor auto mishap happened about 3km from civilisation, so on the off chance that Luke was unable to fix our busted wheel, we weren't in danger of eating baked beans for three days while waiting for a passing motorist to save us from the road side (Note to self: check tyres daily before crossing the Nullabour or heading into NT).

Luke set himself a new pit stop record and changed our tyre in about 5 minutes flat, plus we were able to get a good second hand replacement at the next little town. All these little incidents make me wonder how bored I might be if we had attempted this around Australia trip in a brand new Ford Territory instead of a car from the 70's.

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette

Melbourne VW Mechanic

If you ever find yourself in Melbourne and in need of a VW mechanic to either service/ fix your VW (Kombi or otherwise), then we have a recommendation for you!

Try Volkscourt & W.M Motors PTY LTD. Details below:

9-11 Ivanhoe Court, Thomastown, 3074

Phone: 03 9465 3357

Wolfgang Knothe, owner and fellow kombi owner and enthusist will help you out with everything you need to know about VW's. He's got a pretty impressive range of spare parts for sale as well. Wolfgang (cool name, huh?) drives an original dormobile campervan with a Porsche motor that he installed himself, so he knows what he's on about. Look him up!

Yours waiting in McCafe until we get our kombi back,

Odette

PS I know what you're all thinking, but no we haven't broken down... yet! Luke is a firm believer that prevention is better than a cure, so he's decided to keep Jefro the kombi on a strict service schedule. Next service: 5000km (Perth)

I Heart Melbourne

There are so many things to love about the city of Melbourne, that one little blog entry would be no where near big enough to list them all out and do the city justice. But here's a few things I fell in love with all over again, as Luke and I trampled the streets and road the free tram in Victoria's capital over the past few days.

There's the weird, wacky and just plain far-out artwork that's incorporated into the city landscape at every chance. This little beauty below was called "Cow Up A Tree" (Well, duh) and was created by a local sculpture. You can see it on the water front in the new up and coming area surrounding Melbourne's Dockland suburb (It's tres trendy and the perfect spot to grab lunch on a sunny day).

The funky architecture that just screams fun and would make me want to head off to work a whole 30minutes earlier each day (that is 1. If I were cool enough to work in one of these brightly coloured buildings and 2. If I ever decide to go back to work again at all, cool buidling or otherwise!).

The beautiful glimpses of the past, hidden around every city corner. Melbourne mixes the old with the new like a pro - looking out at a 100-year-old church while sipping your soy latte in a tiny little book cafe, wearing your new stripped scarf hand knitted by an up and coming fashion designer is soooo Melbourne.

But now, just when I thought all my Melbourne Christmases had come at once when I discovered the awesome boutique Meet Me At Mikes on Bridge Road during my last Melbourne visit, today my crush on this lovable city has tipped the scale. Why, you ask? Well... I just spent a day at Melbourne's Australian Open.

The crowd, the international tennis players, the excitement, the celebrity spotting, the hard plastic seats that turned our bums numb after just one set of the ladies quarterfinal. It was all amazing. I really enjoy watching the tennis - it seems to have become a summer ritual of sorts and this being my first Aussie Open, I wasn't sure what to expect from this prized Melbourne sports event. But even though we were sitting about as far as you can get from Bec Hewitt's reserved spot, we found ourselves getting caught up in the on and off court action (there were some unusally vocal Frenchman in the crowd that put on a show all of their own).

You can watch the action on centre court, wander around the outside courts and see the up and coming youngsters hit a ball at about 150km an hour, watch some live music, line up for yonks for a free massage in the Garnier sponsor tent or find a piece of grass in the sun, get an ice cream and watch the big screen (with Melbourne's city scape in the background).

So unless you have a couple of hundred bucks to spare to get along to this year's Aussie Open finals on the weekend, think about booking a trip to the tennis next year for something different. It's a great excuse to explore Melbourne all over again and you really never know who you'll bump into...

Yours in beautiful Melbourne,

Odette

Back On The Road Again

The two Tonkins were without their kombi for almost a month during the end of December and early January and let me tell you, Luke and I found ourselves feeling a little... well... displaced. Not homeless, as we made sure we ferried ourselves around to all living relatives and friends as to not overstay our welcome as we returned home for the summer holidays. But explaining to the average 9 to 5 worker who was allowed a lousy 10 days off during the Christmas break that we were currently on a 'holiday from our holiday,' and being faced with either rolling eyes or a scary looking death stare that translated to 'I'm sorry but I hate you,' we felt it time to fly back to Melbourne and pick up Jefro the kombi and start our travels once again.

One final word on the whole 'holiday from a holiday' thingy before you flick off your computer in protest at such an outlandish concept, don't kill me, but it really is as good as it sounds. Okay, enough!

Back in Melbourne, we felt the best thing to do to get us back into the travelling spirit and to bide some time before we head to the tennis for a bit of Nadal action at the Australian Open on Tuesday, was to get back to nature. And what better way to do it then with a trip out to Mount Dandenong - a must for any Melbourneite or interstate visitor alike.

Just 18km from the heart of Melbourne's city, you can find yourself surrounded by a mix of quaint English style gardens and lush Aussie bush. Plus, the choice of top quality restaurants, cafes and tea rooms is amazing. You could have hot choccie after hot choccie and no one would bat an eyelid. Hell, they'd join in and order a batch of home made scones and cream for the road.

So I guess you could say we've managed to slip back into this whole 'trip around Australia' thing with minimal fuss and I'm pleased to say, Jefro started first go, after sitting cold for four weeks. Champion!

Yours in the great outdoors,

Odette