From Ha Noi to Ha Long Bay: a touch of France, a dogs dinner and hard as a rock

We woke up early; it was a very quiet hotel well away from the bustle and noise of Ha Noi, though the Restaurant was full of French people for breakfast. Breakfast was a buffet - nice baguettes, omelettes and French toast (croissants?). We had some time to kill before the bus arrived to take us on our tour of Ha Long Bay, so we took a walk down the road from the hotel. Instant culture shock for Michelle and Liam, with lots of motorbikes and cyclo drivers wanting to take us for a ride. We bought some postcards at an exorbitant price and then walked back to the hotel.

The minibus soon arrived for our Ha Long Bay Tour. There were about 15 of us on the tour. We stopped for morning tea at a disabled workshop a couple of hours into the trip to stretch the legs and allow a toilet stop. I bought a stone dragon and a stone water buffalo sculpture and Michelle picked up a some embroidered coasters.

We had lunch at Ha Long City at a very nice restaurant; though the main attraction was the dogs in a basket on the back of a motorbike which we could see from the back window. Yes, they do eat dogs in Vietnam... After lunch it was only a short 10 minute drive to the wharf.

We boarded the dragon boat and were soon making our way past floating houses, small boats selling food and groceries and many fishing craft. Ha Long bay is serenely beautiful, with characteristically magnificent limestone karsts peppered throughout the green waters of the bay.

We visited a huge limestone cave which had postcard views back into the bay, then cruised through islands until 6pm. Everyone chatting and playing games. Liam was having a ball with 3 other kids being on board, playing "Pirates".

Unfortunately it was too cold to swim - and very cool this evening, so sleeping out on deck under the stars was also out.

Dinner was similar to lunch; fish, prawns, rice, vegetables and salad. With the generators turned off it was very quiet sleeping on the boat, and pitch black!

From Melbourne to Ha Long Bay

We left Melbourne airport at around 11:15. Liam's face as the plane took off was full of wonder. The flight was uneventful, and Vietnam Airlines were pretty well no frills but comfortable enough.
We met some lovely Vietnamese people on the plane. One lady I spoke too had left Vietnam 20 years ago during the war and had walked from Vietnam through Cambodia, and then had caught a bus to Thailand were she had then gone as a refugee to New Zealand. It was her first trip back to Vietnam. We landed in Saigon at around 4:00PM. (4 hours behind Australia). It was very humid, and the airport was quite old. There were many concrete bunkers and arched concrete hangers. It looked very much like it was straight from a World War 2 movie.
We had to check in and go through customs for our flight onto Hanoi, which was a reasonably straightforward process, with us given stickers to place on our chests so that we were ushered by staff from one counter to another.
We arrived in Hanoi around 8PM to a very clean and modern airport. I believe it was built for the South East Asian Games. It was too dark to see anything on the 40 minute bus trip from the airport to our hotel apart from the occasional glimpse of passing traffic or poorly lit houses. We arrived at the ATS Hotel quite late. Our room was very nice and thankfully with Air Con. Liam was so tired he even slept through the landing at Hanoi Airport!!

Vietnam

My first overseas holiday were we spent over two fantastic weeks travelling through Vietnam, starting in the north and heading south down the coast. We started in Ha Noi, spent a few days on Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island and then continued down through Hue, Hoi An and Saigon. We had a fantastic time, and everywhere we visited was both scenic and friendly. We can't wait to return to Vietnam, and spend more time in Hoi An and around Ha Noi. We missed out on going to Sapa, so we will definitely have that on our list the next time we visit.

Otways Waterfalls

Participants:

Smitha, Mahesh, Mark & Liam

This trip was designed to see some waterfalls in the Otways that were a little off the normal waterfall list, and to do a bit more exploring in this area of Victoria that i hadn't seen a lot of.  A number of people pulled out of the trip at the last minute, so it was scaled down a bit.  As it was an exploratory trip, there was no ral expectations or strict plans on where we would end up.  My research involved not much more that looking at maps I had of the area, and whatever I could find on the Internet.  As I had been down Curtis Road previously, I figured that the waterfalls in this area would be worth hunting out.  I found reference to Allambee Beek Falls on a walking page, so this was our first destination.

From Wye River we headed up Wye Track, which included a number of muddy bog holes and some very soft mud.  There was also a few very overgrown sections of track; damn, more scratches...

The internet research indicated that the walking track to Allambee Beek Falls was marked with ribbon.  I didn't have high hopes of finding the start easily, but expected it to be around where a 4WD side track marked on the map headed down to Amphitheatre Falls.  This proved correct, though the 4WD track was long overgrown, with fluorescent pink ribbons on the trees marking the walking track quite clearly.  The track made it's way from open forest into a tree fern filled valley, zig-zagging down towards the Cumberland River below.

We crossed the small river over slippery moss covered stones and headed up along the south bank towards the falls, the track still marked clearly with pink ribbon.

I picked up a couple of leeches along the way, but they were all easily flicked off before they managed to bite.  Damn leeches.

The waterfall was very scenic and also very rewarding to find, given it was off the sanitised tourist path.  We spent some time in the coolness of the falls before returning to the car for lunch.

Lunch was looking a bit on the dubious side, given I was not able to find any matches in the car, but eventually managed to get the trangia lit using the car cigarette lighter.  Phew.

The original plan was to continue along Benwerrin Mt Sabine Road and drive down TW Spur Track to visit the cascades on Garvey Creek, and the rock cairn on the Cumberland River, but this was thwarted by a locked gate at the start of the track, marked on the map but indicated as a Seasonal Closure gate.  Looks like the season extends all year now.

We drove down Mt Cowley Road, stopping briefly at the Fire lookout Tower on Mt Cowley.   We turned off and down Garvey Track at Garvey Clearing and started the steep walk down to Kalimna Creek to visit our last two waterfalls.  The walking along the valley was of an easy grade, and we visited Upper Kalimna Falls first.

Lower Kalimna Falls were most interesting, with a large rock overhang allowing the falls to be viewed from beneath.  This would be spectacular with the falls in full flow.

Otways Camping and 4WDing

This was both Henric's and my first trip to the Otways, well at least our first trip off road.  I'd been this way many times travelling the Great Ocean Road, but had never really ventured inland, let alone off road inland.  So this was pretty much an exploratory trip.  We headed inland via Winchelsea and then onto the coast at Lorne.  From here we followed the Great Ocean Road to Wye River, where soon after crossing the river we headed off the main road and up a steep narrow residential street climbing the hillside.  We then found the start of Kennett Wye Jeep Track.

We continued along the top of the ridge and through a burnt area of forest, soon coming to our first bog hole.  We passed through uneventfully and continued on along, soon coming to further bog holes, all traversed without any incident.

As we continued, we passed Wye River Falls, which would have been some 750 metres from the track through the thickets densest impenetrable scrub and bush.  There was no obvious walking track or other sign of it's existence, apart from it being marked on the map.

As we neared the end of Kennett Wye River Jeep Track, the bush opened up more and we saw a number of Black Faced Wallabies jump across the track out of our way.  We drove to the car part for Mt Sabine Falls.  The original plan had been to walk to the falls, but the distance was much further than thought (3.6km, 2.5 hours return), so we setup for lunch and left the walk for another trip.  There had been extensive logging on the East side of the road, which though giving views to the sea was a most unattractive sight.

We backtracked along Mt Sabine Road and made our way to Curtis Road, which I had heard much of as a 4WD destination.  The track was a bit scratchy at the top of the hill, and the descent down to the river certainly was on the steeper side of steep.  Not a track to be happily tackled in the wet.

There was a small river crossing at the bottom of the track across the Cumberland River and the track back out of the valley was of a totally different standard; a 2WD car would be able to pass along easily.  We also saw a few more wallabies along the track as we continued our ascent.

We stopped of at the site of the Curtis Homestead, which was a beautiful location; huge trees, lots of greenery and a mystical feel to the area.  There was one huge Myrtle Beech tree, and I'd have liked to spend more time exploring the forest here.

We turned off into Thompson Track; the plan being to drive down to Lake Elizabeth.  However the side tracks were gated.  A number of cars were parked at the gates, indicating walkers had continued on but that was not our intentions today.  Thompson Track was a good quality track, pretty well OK for 2WD which travelled through reasonably open Eucalypt Forest.

We found a side track not marked on the map so decided to follow it to see where it went.  We were hopeful it was a shortcut to our intended campsite at Lake Elizabeth.  It did take us down to the Barwon River, near a small weir.  A very scenic, peaceful and isolated place.  A Rufous Flycatcher darted in and out between the ferns and down stream, too quick for a clear photo.

We setup camp at the Lake Elizabeth camp ground.  This is a very nice campsite with good clean toilets.  A few other people shared the site, including a girl from England who was travelling around Australia in a hired campervan.  We set up camp, and relaxed under the tarp wasting away the rest of the afternoon.  The campfire took a number of attempts to get going with little suitable wood that wasn't damp, but diesel is a wonderful versatile fuel.

Sunday 1st February 2004

In the morning, we headed out on the walk to Lake Elizabeth, which is a reasonable distance from the campground; approximately a one hour return walk.  There were a number of birds to be seen along the way as we continued upstream of the Barwon River.  The walk was generally quite flat, but nearing the landslip site the path meandered up the mountain side, through tree ferns and amongst the tall timbers.  Lake Elizabeth was discovered by an exploratory party sent upstream to investigate why the Barwon River had stopped flowing.  Unusually heavy rain in 1952 resulted in a huge landslip which dammed the river creating the remote lake in the Barwon Valley.

We packed up camp and headed down Noonday Track, which is truly a most beautiful track with huge trees and lots of greenery as it gently weaves through the forest.  There were a number of muddy bog holes along our journey as we continued along No 1 Spur Track and West Barwon Track.  The original plan had been to drive down Fork Paddocks Track, but the only turnoff that appeared to be the right track was too narrow, slippery and included a 1 metre drop off into the river.  The track was pretty badly churned up by some true dirt pigs, who we nearly came to grief with as they came screaming up the hill.  I was able to stop quickly as they came flying around the corner; the leader however slid right off the track, luckily harmlessly into the long grass on the track verge.

We then visited Stevenson Falls, an easy walk from the car park to the base of the falls which were in good flow.  We found a nice spot along the Gellibrand River for lunch and then turned off the main road onto a 4WD side track up the hill side.  We explored around the forests, basically doing a loop along Upper Gellibrand Road, Bridge Track and Sayers Track which with some very tight manoeuvres between trees on slippery mud brought us back near the falls.  The campsite here was quite popular, with new toilets and large trees to provide shade in summer.  Time was against us now, so we headed on home uneventfully through Forrest and back along the freeway.

Camping at Mt Franklin

This was a quick little 2 day get away on the Australia Day long weekend.  Michelle had heard from a neighbour about Mt. Franklin and what a nice place it was so we packed up the car and headed off.

We took the turnoff from the Midland Highway and began the ascent of this extinct volcano, passing an echidna on the road side along the way.  Too slow to get a photo though, unfortunately.

The road wound along the crater wall, and then came into the most beautiful shaded campsite, that was well protected by the steep crater slopes.  The place was crowded, most likely due to this being a long weekend.  But  I think it would be a lot quieter on a normal weekend making this an ideal weekend getaway.

A good portion of the campground was taken up by a large group in medieval outfits.  Along with armies in chain mail, shields, battle axes and swords.  Their tents were also in theme, with the main tent fitted out inside with candelabras!  I'm sure there must have been a suckling pig on a spit as well.  A few battles ensued over the day which the kids certainly enjoyed watching.

We spent some time relaxing here at the campsite, as well as driving up to the summit of Mt Franklin to see the views.  We also drove into Hepburn Springs, stopping at the Chocolate Mill for some very fine chocolates along the way.  At the Springs, we walked along the now dried up creek bed, and taste tested a number of the different springs.  Liam sampled the Sulphur Spring, but wasn't overly impressed.

We spent a good part of the afternoon here, exploring around the park grounds, with the kids playing in the playground, and  running along the many paths in the park.  We then headed back to the campsite for dinner, a magnificent Spaghetti Bolognaise cooked in the Trangia.  What a magnificent contraption!

After dinner, we decided to head off to Wallace for a surprise visit to Mum's.  Along the way we spotted two Wedge Tailed Eagles soaring over Mt Franklin, and further along past Spargo Creek we saw another Wedge Tailed Eagle on the roadside.   We headed back to camp after coffee, taking the back roads through the forest which took a good 10 to 15 minutes off our return trip.  The campground was remarkably quiet given the number of people there.  Even the ubiquitous Gold 104 listener, who thinks the entire campground enjoys their taste in music kept the volume down to where it could be barely heard.

After a damn good sleep in, we cooked up the bacon and eggs, and then packed up at a leisurely pace.  The plan today was to see what the campground at Slaty's Creek was like, as that was our fallback option if we couldn't squeeze into Mt Franklin.  We eventually found the campsite, which was nice enough though very dry and rocky, and the creek was completely dried up.  With some water flowing through here it would be a lovely place to camp.

We then drove up to Georges Lake, which had a boardwalk through the trees to a lookout.  Shame that there is no camping allowed here.  We stopped off on the far side of the lake for lunch and then made our meandering way home through the forest (a couple of wrong turns.  Thank goodness for GPS, which eventually got us back in the right direction!).

Craig's Hut - King River Day Trip

Participants:

Mark, Pius, Smitha, Praveen and Suresh

This was the first of what I hope will be many trips into the Victorian Bush for our Bangalore team mates as they come out to visit Australia.

Pius was kind enough to round everybody else up and bring them to my place, from where we began our journey shortly after 9:00am.  We headed out past Healesville, and had the first of many smoko stops for Suresh at Selover's Lookout, looking over Maroondah Reservoir.  The weather wasn't looking good, but we were hopeful it would clear up by the time we reached the High Country.

We continued through the Black Spur, winding amongst the lush Tree Ferns and Victorian Mountain Ash.  The Ash is the tallest tree in Australia, which can reach heights of 100 metres.

The road proved too slippery for one car, which had run off the road down the embankment just before St. Ronan's Well.

We had to wait half an hour or so whilst the car was retrieved.  A little bit of excitement for the trip!  The planned stop at St. Ronan's Well to sample the mountain spring water was given a miss, since the traffic built up from the blocking of the road would have kept us delayed much longer still.

On the move again and we stopped near the Archeron Cutting for a quick morning tea, to enjoy the views of the Goulburn Valley, and to give Suresh a smoko.

After passing through Alexandra, we moved off the highway onto a shortcut to Bonnie Doon which took some time off the journey, as well as taking us through some scenic, if dry farmland.  Coming around a corner over a small bridge there was a snake lying across the road.  It appeared dead, and there was no chance to stop or swerve to avoid it, but on reversing back to see if it was Ok or not, it was nowhere to be seen.

Back on the main road towards Bonnie Doon we spotted three Wedge Tailed Eagles soaring over the road.

After passing through Mansfield we came across a farmer herding his sheep with a quadbike and two sheep dogs.  I asked the guys if they used dogs to round the sheep and goats up back in India.  Praveen said it was much cheaper to have a human round them up then to train a dog!

We turned off the sealed road just before Mt Buller at Merimbah and started heading up the mountains.  We passed Telephone Box Junction, with it's many cross country skiing trails now being walking trails during the summer.

We continued along Circuit Road and almost missed the turnoff at Howqua Gap.  Changing down into real 4WD, we started our ascent of Mt Stirling.  The road was in very good condition having been recently graded by its appearance.  Still it was a real taste of off-road, especially as we crawled over the many cross-cut drains and through a couple of tight switchbacks.

The track levelled off amongst the Snow Gums, which was a perfect place to stop, stretch the legs and spines and take some photos.

We spotted some cattle left to graze through the bush, but they moved off to a safe distance as Suresh approached.  The cows in Australia aren't quite as friendly as the cows back in India.

Bidding the cows farewell, we were back in the car to make our way to Mt Stirling summit.

A short climb brought us to the peak, which had panoramic views across the High Country and back to Mt. Buller, where Suresh and Praveen had both visited on a previous trip during the snow season.

There was a crisp breeze, so it was jacket time for most but the weather was starting to fine up nicely.  We passed a father and his young son who were hiking across the hills as we continued on to Craig's Hut.

The views from Craig's Hut are always fantastic, and even the cloudy day couldn't spoil them.  We explored around the hut, and were almost able to convince Suresh that the graves were real.

After exploring the hut, it was time for lunch before backtracking a little to The Monument, a peak half way between Craig's Hut and Mt Stirling.  We made our descent off the mountain down Monument Track, which wound down fairly steeply in some parts, passing over some rocky shelves along the way.

We drove down to Bindaree Falls, where the bridge over Bindaree River was out. We drove down the ravine and through the creek to the other side of the bridge and made our way up the walking  track to the falls.

The walking track passed under the falls allowing a scenic view through the cascade and past the tree ferns back down the river valley.  We were soon back into the car and making our way towards King Hut. 

Another bridge was unsafe to cross, so we took the small ford alongside it; a photo opportunity Suresh couldn't miss.

Not too much longer and we arrived at King Hut.  Can you believe it, more cows!  We put the Billy up to boil, and made our way down to the river.  Suresh slipped on one of the cobblestones and got a foot wet, but most unfortunately I missed the photo.  We enjoyed the cool water and the serene location by the river for a while, and then returned to the hut for our afternoon tea break.

After coffee and Oreo's, we drove along King River Basin, crossing the river some 6 times before arriving at Pineapple Flat camping area.  The river was quite low, barely coming up to the steps on the car with the crossing into Pineapple Flat being the deepest.  A couple of kids fishing by the river crossing probably didn't appreciate our arrival!

More leg stretching and exploring along the river to help break up our drive.  A number of people where camped here, it truly is a popular camping spot.  We crossed the river again on our way out, with the kids still fishing beside the river crossing.

We thought we were on our way back out of the forest heading home, only to come around a bend in the track to see a gum tree fallen and blocking the way out.

After attacking the tree with an axe, a drag chain, a winch and the muscle power of 4 guys, 20 minutes later we eventually cleared enough of the tree off the track to get through.  The rest of the trip off the mountain into Mansfield was thankfully uneventful.  We stopped at Flakeout in Mansfield for dinner and spent another two hours on the road, arriving home at my place at 10:30 in the evening.  I didn't envy the rest of them who had another 45 minutes or so of travel back to their respective homes!  A long but enjoyable day.