Tuesday 20 January 2015

Upper Yarra Reservoir: Day 2

LiAM had trouble sleeping and Millie woke up and joined us at one point so Caitlin was the only one who spent the whole night on the floor. It was crowded with 4 of us on the mattress but there was enough room. I extricated myself once it was light and sat outside and had a cup of tea and read my book for ages by myself, it was lovely - an overcast morning with the mountain looming above me, very quiet and very peaceful. It did start to get cold so eventually I needed to find more clothes from the spare bag in the car (I didn't want to wake anyone else up so didn't go back in the tent). Caitlin joined me after a while, we went and cooked some porridge and sat undercover to eat it - it was raining a bit by this stage. After breakfast we played cards until the others emerged one by one from the tent.

Once the kids were all up they wandered over to see their friends from the glowstick party the night before. LiAM's friend from yesterday had left, but there was an 8 year old boy in the other group, so he quickly made a new friend. All the kids (ours and theirs) spent the morning running back and forth between the 2 campsites, exploring the area, playing the camper trailer, climbing trees and so on. Tony and took our time to pack up and chat and have a cup of tea and then some lunch. The trailer was much easier to pack up than I'd thought it might be, which was a relief.

Once everything was packed and the other families had left, we went for a walk on the Fern Gully Track. I'd forgotten how beautiful the river was until we were crossing the bridge over it. We walked on the loop track and the kids found a very long fallen tree which they played on for a while, then we completed the loop and had a paddle in the extremely cold river. Even Millie came a little way in. The kids then wanted to show us a place they'd found with their friends that morning, so we headed up the path to come back to the river further up - there was a little weir, and a picnic table was sitting in the corner of the river and the weir wall, which was a very exciting place to sit... We played on the weir for a while, surrounded by tall trees and ferns and the beautiful clear, freezing water. Eventually we extricated ourselves and got back in the car. I had a bit of reversing practice with the trailer on and then we headed home.

LiAM and Caitlin at the end of a fallen tree (they are there in amongst the ferns)
Paddling in the river
'Picnic' in the river
The Yarra River looks very different here compared to near our place near Yarra Glen, or once it gets all the way into the city
About 15 minutes down the road the car started overheating. We refilled the water but the engine heated up again straight away so we stopped and called the RACV. Turns out the water pump had seized (I'd been told last week I needed a new one and was booked in to get one in about 10 days....). Tony took the kids into Warburton for fish and chips while I waited for the tow truck. They brought a replacement car for us - but it had mechanical problems too and after I had all our stuff in it the guy decided we couldn't take it after all... So he towed the car and trailer to the depot in Yarra Junction, we drove the dodgy loan car to the depot and transferred all our stuff (again) to a tiny little hatchback and we finally drove home. The guy took the trailer (and our car) to the depot in Healesville and Tony went down and got the trailer with his car, and hopefully my car will be fixed sometime very soon!

Despite the frustrating ending of our trip though everyone was still in good spirits (although very tired) and had an enjoyable time camping - all looking forward to doing it again!

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