The crossing back to the mainland had been much better. Still plenty of rolling about, but this time being in the middle of the boat we felt it less and has less noise of the hull groaning and moaning as it cut a path through the Bass Strait. Our arrival into Melbourne was early, approximately 0530. We disembarked without incident and made our way to our accommodation for the next week.
Yes, we are without Golidlocks for the week while she has her suspension serviced and solar panels re-wired and re-configured. Ken has been doing a lot of research on our solar and the desired and required output. We bought a generators in Tassie to help meet our needs. With a love of free camping and it edging closer to winter when the sun drops lower in the sky, reducing our capacity Ken felt it was necessary. Our energy demands are pretty high and our current system just doesn’t cut it.
So while Goldilocks gets some attention we are hoping to have a bit of a city break and explore Melbourne City. Turns out we didn’t really get much exploring done at all. The Airbnb house was just lovely and being the home of two young girls there were loads of toys! The girls where in heaven and not really keen to go anywhere.
So the week filled up with school work, planning and lots of lovely homely activities. Cooking, baking, craft and dress ups. The local area was perfect for scootering around and with lots of Parks in the near vicinity we enjoyed just getting out amongst the beautiful leafy suburb of Middle Park.
Our one big outing for the week was a lovely long walk along Port Philip Bay, down to the Saint Kilda foreshore and Ackland street for lunch. It was a glorious sunny autumn day and before we knew it we where at the St Kilda Pier, then Luna Park and finally the hub of St Kilda, Ackland street. Soaking up the vibes for lunch we then caught the #96 tram home to complete a quintessential Melbourne day out.
Ken was kept busy dealing with van issues. Turns out Goldilocks had some pretty significant issues with her chassis and was going to need to return to the Zone RV factory in Coolum Beach. Well that wasn’t in our plans! The negotiations, re-organizing and investigation all took up a lot of time but a new plan was born.
We reluctantly sent the bikes home and stripped as much weight off the van as we could. We’d continue with our planned fortnights tour of central Victoria before returning to Melbourne and sending the van up to Coolum Beach on a truck.
It was a mad rush making all the necessary arrangement but eventually we were ready to pick up the van and head for Easter celebrations in Daylesford. Here we caught up with my oldest school friend, (we met in year 3 at 8 years of age). Back on the road again and it feels good like we are home.