BLAZEAID: NHILL, LOBETHAL, ADELAIDE HILLS & MCLARENVALE WINE REGIONS

Yesterday I packed up at the BLAZEAID LOBETHAL CAMP having spent the past eleven days in the company of hundreds of volunteers and farmers clearing and rebuilding farm fencing lost in the horrific Adelaide Hills bushfires that engulfed the region just a few days before Christmas. It's been an interesting and rewarding time. Not only did I learn how to do fencing, but I met dozens of new people (some now friends), ate myself silly with three meals plus (donated, home-baked) morning and afternoon teas provided each day and, on my days off, visited lots of wineries. Always early mornings and hard work, but all in all a really worthwhile experience. 

I had left Daylesford on January 22nd aware that the forecast was for pretty strong wind. As I headed further west however, it turned into a freaking gale with gusts up around 100kph. I had planned to overnight at Bordertown, but pulled the pin at Nhill, fearful the crosswinds were going to blow me off the road. WikiCamps rated the freecamp at Nhill Airport highly, so I hightailed it for there, fortunately finding a relatively sheltered spot between the Military Museum and some other buildings. Another couple with a van joined me and with the luxury of power outlets conveniently located on the front of the museum, we hunkered down for the onslaught. And it indeed was an onslaught! What started out as a massive dust storm turned into thunderstorms with torrential rain and plenty of thunder and lightning. It was quite an evening and night! By morning it had eased to just plain wet and windy. And sadly for the fuel consumption it was all headwind to my South Australian destination of Lobethal. Bugger!

Nhill Airport gets a 3.5 rating from me. It's an overnighter that has maybe 4 powered sites on bitumen and lots of  flat grassed areas with trees for shade. It has clean toilets, a dump point, good phone and TV reception, is dog friendly and feels safe. It's only about a kilometer out of town and is surrounded by pastureland so is very quiet. There's a donation box.

We were out of there quite early and at Bordertown  took a break so James could have a walk and a wee and I could have a cappy. The coffee shop there is amazing and houses the original police station building. It's a quaint old Aussie town that is not actually on the SA/Vic border but 17km west of it. It's also the birthplace of Bob Hawke, one of Australia's rather iconic Prime Ministers, and a Rhodes scholar to boot. There is a museum dedicated to him there but it was too cold, wet and windy to wander around the town at length.

The trip up into the Adelaide Hills was a lovely drive with very pretty scenery until we hit the fire zone. Wow! It was so sad to see. As I  approached the Blazeaid camp I couldn't believe how the town of Lobethal had escaped the flames. Camp was at the local sports oval so I parked, checked in at the makeshift registration desk that had been set up in the large footy/cricket clubrooms, filled in all the paperwork and was given my Blazeaid Volunteer badge with my first name written on it. The fact that I had a dog was apparently a cause for concern even though l had already told Barb, one of the head honchos, that James would be with me. A discussion with Sue ensued and as he was not allowed to go out on site with me I said I would leave him in the van and only go out every second day. I would see how he coped being left alone from 7 in the mornings till 3 or 4pm. Justin then showed me where to park the van amid 20 or so other vans and after setting up James and I did a recce of the area by foot and then by car. The fire had pretty much burned right up to the edge of town and even parts of the sports fields which were right in town were scorched.

Morning Muster was at 7.15 daily, so next morning I was up by 6, walked James and presented myself amid the 80 or more other volunteers, making sure, as per the rule book, to wear my name tag and the hi-vis vest provided. After a briefing on safety, procedures, registering for dinner each day, alcohol policy (two drinks per day per haps....yeah right!) and other stuff that became a bit boring on a repetitive daily basis, we were allocated to teams and given a team leader. Each team was assigned a trailer with all tools that would be needed, an esky full of food and drink and by 8am the eight of us had packed into three cars and headed out to our assigned property.

The people and work were quite good fun and the farmers happy to have us. You could work at your own pace, certainly under no pressure to bust a gut, and breaks at 10.30 and 12.30 with plenty to eat. Home time was generally around 3pm, by which time you were dirty and buggered. I was glad to only work every second day, though several of the other days I worked in the kitchen, setting up for breaky which started at 6.30 then making sandwiches or preparing food for the next day. Work was cancelled if it was forecast to be over 40 degrees or it was raining, and only a half day worked over 36 degrees. Some volunteers worked lots of days and others did a few here and there. Most people came from Adelaide or surrounding areas each day, though the core volunteer management group were all pretty much camped onsite.

Evening meal was 6.30 and provided by different local organisations each night. The food was bloody yummy, plenty of it and lots of variety. Some nights there were heaps of people there. You could take a wine or beer from the fridge for $3 or bring your own. While the drinking wasn't regulated, no one really over indulged in the dining room. What went on in one's private space, however, was one's own business!

Apparently the Lobethal Camp is the biggest Blazeaid has ever had, some days with well over 100 volunteers - young, old, male, female, interstate and internationals included. The beauty of the organisation is that not a single person gets paid anything. Every level is run by volunteers with everything used and consumed either donated or purchased by fundraising. It's pretty impressive and a fabulous way to help out in disaster areas while having a bit of fun and meeting new people.

On my days off I made sure to do lots of sightseeing. Hahndorf is a famous tourist destination just a few kilometers from Lobethal. Established by 19th century Lutherans from Germany it has amazing architecture, artisan food and lots of beer houses.

The wineries in the Adelaide Hills wine region are abundant, and I made it my mission to visit, taste and buy at many of them!

I did lots of driving through the Adelaide Hills. It is a really beautiful area. I visited Mount Lofty Lookout, the Big Rockinghorse and hand-made timber toy shop and had a few wines at the Lobethal Bierhous.

We took a run down through the hills to the McLarenvale wine region where I had a delicious lunch and Rose from Wirra Wirra and we also spent an afternoon at the gorgeous Christies Beach.

And on February 1st. we celebrated James 12th. birthday. Happy birthday to my true blue mate!

Last Friday through to Monday we had lots of rain (90mm). Great for lots of reasons but boy - did it make for a wet camp! I must admit I was starting to get over it.

And to be honest, after eleven days in one spot my feet were beginning to itch. Time to move! I bid farewell to the BlazeAid crew and headed off to continue my travels. I do have to say -

Great work BlazeAid volunteers. You do a bloody good job!

DAYLESFORD & YARRAWONGA (Christmas & New Year at home)

My daughter, Emma, lives in Daylesford with her fiance, Louise. Em and Lou were hosting our family Christmas at their place, and I'd promised to attend before continuing my travels around Oz. I planned to spend a couple of weeks there, not only to catch up with my girls but also to do some much needed maintenance and cleaning of my red-dust impregnated car and van interior. Seven months on the road, much of which was in the Outback, had rendered the Jeep, in particular, disgusting. I left Jamieson on December 14th arriving in Daylesford late afternoon. 

Much of my childhood was spent in Daylesford as my father was a teacher at the local secondary school, so returning to it was very familiar. When I was a kid it was a farming community, an historic old gold mining town and the centre of Victoria's mineral spa country. These days it is very much a tourist destination with upmarket boutique accommodation, shops, galleries, eateries and pubs. It now also has a rather quirky alternative culture and a large portion of the population is gay. It's a truly fun, interesting place.

I parked my van beside Em's house (which is just around the corner from where my family of seven lived in a tiny 3 bedroom house), leaving the roadside nature strips out front free for two more large vans to park when the rest of the crew arrived for Christmas. When they did the street looked a bit like a caravan park!

With a few days up my sleeve I took the time to visit some of my childhood haunts: the gorgeous Botanic Gardens on Wombat Hill, the old lookout, Lake Daylesford and Hepburn Springs. 

Christmas with the family was lovely....Santa managed to find everyone, Lou cooked a yummy dinner and the kids had a ball.

With Christmas over I packed up the van and James and l returned to our hometown of Yarrawonga. It felt a bit weird to be back given it was only for a couple of weeks and while l drove by my house that my friend Dot was looking after, I didn't go in and we stayed in the van. Most of the time we spent in the bush beside the Murray just a couple of kilometres out of town, though given Victoria, and in fact a large part of Australia, was being devastated by bushfire l moved to Brian's house nearby on really hot, smoky and windy days.

It was fantastic to catch up with friends, play golf and see all the changes to Yarrawonga. It is developing at a massive rate with retirees, for the most part, moving to the country to get away from the hustle and bustle of city living.

Mid January I took the van back to Daylesford and parked it for a few days while l caught up with more friends and family in the big smoke. Travelling into the Melbourne traffic, noise, graffiti and erratic weather was not fun though once again it was great to see everyone, including my travel companion Karen. She is keen to hit the road again and we made plans to meet up in South Australia in Feb-March and head westward together. It was lovely also to spend a few days with Christine and Greg - and their furbaby Chilli!

The massive bushfires totally dominated every aspect of Australia's summer/Christmas season. For many days we were blanketed in smoke so thick that our air pollution rating was the highest in the world. To date, and still with many uncontrolled fires burning across the country, millions of hectares of bush, billions of animals, hundreds of homes and dozens of lives have been lost. It's a disaster and an absolute tragedy. With only half the summer over and the countryside tinder dry in the worst drought in recorded history, the coming weeks and months look bleak. With that in mind I did a re-think of my plans to head straight to the coastline south of Victor Harbour, then on to the Eyre Peninsula in SA. I would put that on hold for a few weeks and work as a volunteer laborer for BlazeAid helping to erect farm fencing in the fire-effected community around the Adelaide Hills in SA.

I returned to Em and Lou's for a couple of days to ready the van to head west and dumped the two most useless appliances in my van - the TV/wall bracket, and the microwave. With most of my camping unpowered they were rarely used, I can watch TV on my Ipad, and I saved a shitload of space and weight! The microwave space was not pretty to look at with stuff shoved in, so I made an MDF cover, painted it, put a map of Oz on it and velcro'd it in place. It worked a treat!

I said my goodbyes to Em and Lou Wednesday, January 22nd and hit the road once again - hopefully until September.