Butts Reserve, Maldon, Victoria {Free Camping}

What a beautiful spot to hide out for the long weekend!

We had so much space, access to flushing toilets and water all for nothing.  Our cheapest stay in Victoria!

It didn't take us long to arrive at our spot {even with a few stops for the puppy} and it was nice to have a quiet afternoon around camp for us all to settle in.  A little relaxing, cheese eating and of course playing with Lillie was a perfect way to spend our afternoon.

 

 

After pancakes for breakfast we headed up the Mountain to have a look at the view before making our way into Maldon.  All I can say is we timed it well as everything in town was open and they even had an awesome little market for us to have a wander through.  Some fresh food purchases, twisty potatoes for the kids, checking out antique stores before we stopped for fresh scones & coffee.  It was a really nice way to spend the day, just slowly wandering around and taking in everything the town had to offer.

 

  

 

 

It really is a lovely little place, not too far from Melbourne and even closer to Bendigo. The following day we decided to go for a drive around the area to explore the surrounding region.  It reminds me a lot of Kalgoorlie in that there are heaps of old mine shafts in and around the town, hard to believe how big and busy the area was in the late 1800's, early 1900's.

More puppy play time before it we started packing up ready to leave the following morning.  

Just as the sun was setting behind the mountain we decided to take a quick drive up to take in the rest of the site and boy am I glad that we went.  What a fabulous way to spend our last night here.

  

Goodbye Kalgoorlie {Caravan Park - Work}

One thing that I will miss about Kalgoorlie, the amazing sunsets, lovely old buildings and parks.  It doesn't nothing for my desire to have an old house again, to live in something that has character and to show it new life.

There is actually a fabulous looking 'Bank of Australia' building that is for sale in Boulder but sadly not something we would ever consider buying because, well it is in Boulder and that is not really somewhere I would like to live forever.

It is hard to believe that we have been in Kalgoorlie for more than a month, time has flown in one way and dragged by in another sense.  Living in a caravan park for this long has been one of the downfalls, we have stayed places for a month of more before but it has felt different to this. I am well and truly ready to move onto our next location.

Kalgoorlie {Caravan Park - Work}

We have arrived, even if it is as my family are leaving for a holiday or have now left to live in Perth!

Kalgoorlie really is a place that never changes, it looks exactly the same as it did the last time we came up and that was 3 years ago for Easter {my sister & her girls came too}.

Before we left Albany {and I still had reception} I emailed a few of the caravan parks to see which would be cheaper and the one that was the cheapest {Discovery Park South Kalgoorlie} turns out also wanted to talk to Justin about some work, so that is the one that we went with.

When we arrived we decided to give it a week and see what happened with work for J.  Well he did a two private jobs and we managed to negotiate the caravan park job so looks like we will be staying put until mid April.  So we are almost two weeks into our stay and I have seen more of the area than I have in any other past visit, kind of scary when you think about it!

As always no trip to Kalgoorlie is right without a trip to a Hammond Park and b The Super Pit, both of which we managed to do on the first day and J has been back to the super pit a few times since.

With some time up our sleeve on Friday we decided to pack a lunch and head out to do part of the Golden Quest Discovery Trail and I am so glad that we did.  It has so much history and it is so hard to believe that people lived in the middle of no where, literally nowhere in the late 1800's/early 1900's.  Now in most cases there is nothing left but may-be so rubble or grave sites but they have marked the locations with signs to show where the gazetted town sites used to be.  There are hundreds of all exploration shafts, probably the same in number of old mine sites and it is all in the middle of this isolated outback.  In some ways I can just picture what it looked like, in others it is really hard to believe that up to {and sometimes more} than 500 people lived in these locations.  These days they struggle to get people to live in Kalgoorlie, everything is no FIFO much to the detriment of not only these country towns but also to the families that these workers belong to.  IMO anyways.

Kalgoorlie is also nothing if good at keeps you on your towns when it comes to weather.  We have had several thunder storms since we arrived, lightening, heat, cold, rain and even a magnificent supercell {if only I hadn't been so slack and had reached for my DLSR and not just used my iPhone}

Now that we are done part of it I am hoping that when J had a break over Easter we can go and do another portion, it would be great to see some of the other places that my Mum and her family used to live.  Menzies is really no more than a caravan park now, even the petrol station is no longer manned {promise pictures next time of Menzies}.

Next update will be for a certain little girls birthday!