The Manna House: From Melbourne to Phillip Island

We had a few more days in Melbourne, during which time I managed to get 2 excellent seats for the Sat matinee show of “The Jersey Boys” . Before the show, we went to the Queen Victoria markets. The food section is extensive, with a meat and seafood area, a large Deli section and a wonderful fruit and veg area. Then, at the back of those is a vast area selling anything and everything. It would take all day to get around it, I am sure., but I did my best to see as much as possible.
The Jersey Boys proved to be the most entertaining show I have seen in recent years. We both loved it. What a treat and how fortunate to get good seats the day before. We did have to sit in separate rows (Marnie one row behind me) but were only 10 rows from the stage and almost in the middle. To get seats together, we would have to sit upstairs almost in the last row.
I have to say, we really loved Melbourne. It is a huge city, a little overwhelming to me at times, but great shopping, the latest shows, wonderful transport (love the trams) innumerable restaurants, a convenience store on almost every corner, noisy, busy and just a great place to spend some time. We were sorry to leave after 5 days. On our way out, we stopped at Glen Iris to visit my nephew David and his lovely wife Nicole and their 2 gorgeous children Charlie and Lou Lou. We enjoyed lunch with them and left at 3pm heading for Moe. It was stinking hot and we were dead beat by the time we got there. I rang my ex husband to let him know we were in town and the next morning we met for a coffee and catch up. He has been living in Moe for almost a year.
Wilsons Promontory, commonly known to Victorians as The Prom, was our next destination and we arrived after lunch at Tidal River, a large camping area in The National Park, next to the river and a few hundred meters to a beautiful beach. This is a very well set up holiday spot, with cabins, dormitories , a supermarket, café , info centre , well mapped out nature walks and lots of amenity blocks for the campers, not to mention, miles from nowhere. There were only a few (very expensive) powered sites. I think it all comes from solar power. We opted for non powered and managed to survive (only just!) for the next 2 days.
Tidal River has a wonderful backdrop of mountains which seem to be mostly rocky formations, high enough to have the clouds hanging over their tops at times. The walk to the beach, along the tannin stained river, has interesting granite boulders in natural, but attractive groupings. We did one of the nature walks which meandered on a boardwalk, by the river and over wetlands. The weather has been comfortably cool while staying here. We made friends with a cute, tame, Crimson Rosella. He sat in a tree close to the RV watching us. Marnie pulled out her bag of mixed parrot seed and he jumped straight onto her arm , picking out the sunflower seeds and pushing off all the others, so that they fell onto the ground. Another baby rosella joined him , then later we had 3 eating the discarded seeds. We didn’t see any other animals, but there was plenty of nocturnal activity outside the van, judging by the many and varied footprints surrounding us in the mornings. We did see one rabbit!
Onwards, ever onwards, we then drove to Phillip Island, to the main town of Cowes and here we are for 2 days. We are 100M from a lovely beach , which we enjoyed an evening stroll on last night, and today, while Marnie painted, I walked into town to check out the shops and general vibe.
We have not managed to get our awning replaced yet and will have to contact the insurance company, as the Melbourne repairer has not received the replacement and we will be leaving Victoria in a few days time.

Vicki

The beautiful old Princess theatre where we saw the Jersey Boys

Parliament House, Melbourne

The yummy Deli section of the Queen Victoria markets

I should have inserted a family pic of David and co, but completely forgot to take one. Also forgot to take one of ex Bill, so this is in the Prom, tannin stained river and interesting rocks