We've had a pretty good run down the coast and been really lucky with the weather. I'm very glad we didn't come down the middle of NSW as we'd probably be still trying to get through.
We managed to visit Wilson's Promontory on the way and had a surprise visit from a wombat during the night. Erin was so stoked she that she almost kissed it. It was great that she finally got to see a live wombat as we'd seen two dead on the road on the way in and our visit to Squeaky Beach was marred by the countless dead birds on the shore and a dead seal. Poor thing was in tears (Erin, not the seal).
We caught the ferry last night from Port Melbourne and arrived at 5 past 5 to board the boat nice and early, gates opened at 5pm, yeah, nice try. As we are a little on the large size now, it was 6.40pm before we actually drove on board, one of the last. All the motor homes and vans are packed in like sardines on the garage deck and you have to breathe in and duck under mirrors to make your way to the elevators. The trip over was a bit rough and the boat rocked a bit but it wasn't so much the rocking that was bad, it was so noisy. The boat would shudder violently every so often and the engines were very loud. We consequently got very broken sleep. I don't know if it was just because we were in the recliners or if the cabins are just as noisy. We each got provided with a little pillow and a lovely warm blanket and front row seats looking straight out the rear windows, great views of Melbourne as we left. At 5am we got a wake up call and all the lights were turned back on. Our long wait to get on the ship was not repeated during disembarkation and we were about the fourth off the boat at 6.40am. Breakfast in a nearby carpark at 7am, our grocery shopping was done by 8am, great finding parking at that time of the morning, and then to a quiet location by the beach to catch some more zzzz's.
We are currently camped on a farm east of Devonport due to receiving a phone call from a friend of a friend who is also expecting said friend to arrive here on Wednesday. Erin is having a ball, there are pet parrots here, a dog and a cat and lots of cows. A great place to sit for a while and do day trips from for surrounding areas. I think tomorrow we'll head down to Railton and Sheffield for a look around. Today is just a rest day, we are all feeling a little jet-lagged.
I also found a nifty program for plotting our route that's a lot easier to use than Google Maps, if anyone is interested it's at http://www.routeconverter.de/downloads/en and I've uploaded our latest trip map in the photo album as well as other photos.
