Christmas Day!

I hope everybody is having a merry Christmas.

Sanna and I celebrated Christmas morning with mimosas and cheese sandwiches.

We stayed in a very nice campground In Mallacoota. As you can see, we had one of the more basic or Spartan setups in the camp.

Due to it being Christmas Day, the roads were seemingly more quiet and a lot of towns on the way to Melbourne were pretty much shut down. But we did get some good shots on the road.

We did mostly driving today as we want to be on the Great Ocean Road in a couple days. We also decide to take an hour detour and go by Phillip Island on the way to Melbourne.

But first from Mallacoota we went by Cape Conran and walked around there.

Next we drove down to a small resort town called Lakes Entrance. We stopped for lunch (Christmas Fish and Chips – we’re thinking about making it a tradition) and explored a little bit before driving down to McLoughlins Beach.

In McLoughlins Beach we decided to stay there for the night. On the way we saw an Emu, Kangaroos and an Echidna. We found this remote area on the Victorian coast with wetland and beaches. There is a long walk through an inlet, wetlands and bush before you reach the actual beach but the beach itself is untouched and very beautiful.

As I write this, Sanna is making dinner and the sun is setting.

We plan to turn in early and watch It’s a Wonderful Life since it is Christmas.

Daily progress report.

(Due to lack of internet on the night of day 2, I am posting for both day 2 & 3)

Day 2

Our adventure has already had some interesting moments.

Someone decided it will be fun to light firecrackers last night from 11 pm to around 3 am. On top that, the van warmed up pretty fast the following morning so we got up and started the day around 8 am. Even with the lack of sleep, neither one of us felt tired the whole day.

Randomly while Sanna and I were walking to our camper van after paying for the night, another person staying on the campground gave us a bottle of red wine and a teddy bear. We initially attempted to refuse the generous but obviously suspicious gift but it would have been even more awkward and difficult to say no. We accepted it graciously and slightly begrudgingly.

With our new “gifts” in tow, we decided to take a look at the shops in Berry. Sanna found a lovely new Christmas tree ornament of a silver bird for our collection. But the highlight of Berry was trying out the homemade donuts from the Donut Van. I got two cinnamon donuts with a flat white and I think I had some of the best donuts in a while.

From Berry we drove south to Shoalhaven Heads where stopped at Seven Mile Beach for a short swim and walkabout.

The weather was very warm and humid so we were stopping by numerous beaches as we travelled down A1. We heard good things about Jervis Bay and Hyams Beach. We didn’t swim while there but we walked around and took in the views. There were a lot of people at this beach compared to Seven Mile Beach and parking showed as such. Lastly the sand at Hyams Beach was very powdery and reminded me of sands of some beaches back home in Florida.

As it was getting dark, Sanna found a rest stop where we could sleep for the night. Rest stop was an adequate description of the location as the only thing there was restrooms and picnic benches with parking spots.

It wasn’t the greatest but the coolest thing about that night was the ability to sit there in the darkness and see the stars above. Before falling asleep in the back of the van, I sat there and just looked through the window stared into the Aeneas and beauty of the stars above me.

Day 3: Christmas Eve

This is probably the first time ever where it was Christmas Eve and didn’t feel like it was the day before Christmas.

We obviously slept in a little due to the fireworks fiasco in Berry and the resulting lack of sleep.

We quickly washed up and continued south until we reached Narooma. We stopped there and did a short video chat with my family after watching some local fishers guy fish and throw scraps to waiting pelicans and stingrays.

We walked up to Bar Rock Lookout and also saw Australia Rock (a rock formation with a hole in it). Sanna and I saw a sleeping seal when we strolled down Wagonga Head.

Weather wise, today was a lot cooler and greyer than any of the previous days.

We stopped in Merimbula for lunch and looked around a little bit. Sanna and I get the impression that this town is very much a beach resort town.

After lunch we went to the town of Eden where they have a history in whaling and beautiful views.

That was the last town we stopped in before driving into the State of Victoria. We picked the town of Mallacoota to stay for the night. We were able to park not to far from the ocean.

We had a basic dinner after walking around “downtown” Mallacoota. The temperature got pretty cool and we decided to have tea and cookies for dessert.

We don’t know what we will do exactly for Christmas other than continue to drive to Melbourne. The weather tomorrow will dictate what activities we will do. We will see.

Let me give you and idea of how much we travelled so far.

I will skip the boring part of Sanna and I getting ready and heading out to Botany to pick up our camper van.

We picked up our camper van called “Jabba” from Spaceship Van Hire and headed south on the M1 and A1 towards Wollongong.

The camper van is essentially a modified Toyota mini van that has a bed, kitchen ware, fridge/freezer and 2 small stoves. Sanna called the van “Jabba with a Hut”.

After we stopped in Miranda to get supplies, we went to the town of Kiama and took a look around. We found a nice cafe and saw the local lighthouse and blowhole.

That evening we decided to stay in the quaint little town of Berry for the night. We walked around Berry and explored the “downtown” area before returning to campground where we had dinner and will sleep over night.

The camper van comes with kitchen ware including a knife for chopping. Unfortunately, it was dull as some of my jokes and it was amusing watching Sanna struggle to slice up tomatoes for dinner.

I am quite new to this experience but I will get better at blogging over the next few days on this road trip.