After leaving the Browne's on Wednesday morning the 11th of April, we headed towards Traralgon, in Victoria's south-east, to catch up with the Cheney family.
We first met the Cheney's in the summer of 2011 on our first caravaning trip down to Esperance and up to Kalgoorlie.
When we arrived in Kalgoorlie, Nina being the social butterfly that she is, spied a caravan with 3 windows.
Hoping to try her luck with finding a girl to play with, she thought she had died and gone to heaven when 3 beautiful girls jumped out of the caravan, Ashley, Georgia and Ella.
We all hit it off and by late January last year, the Cheney's, who were caravaning around Australia... ended up spending 3 weeks at the farm with us, on their way through the south-west.
For Nina, the trip has started in Traralgon, she has been counting the days until she got to see "the Cheney chicks."
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| Our van set up at the Cheney house |
So when we arrived - she was in her element, playing dress ups and catching up with the girls.
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| Scary Nina, playing dress-ups |
Shayne and Megan took us on a tour of the local area.
Shayne is a builder, so they took us to the block where they are planning to build their new house, the views were amazing.
The Cheney's lost their home in the Victorian fires a couple of years ago so they plan to rebuild on the same block. We could understand why after seeing it...
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| The Cheney's new pad |
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| The garden and the cubby house survived the fire |
After a beautiful roast, cooked by Megan, we chatted before calling it a night.
On Thursday the 12 of April... we headed up into the mountains, to a historic gold mining town called Walhalla, stopping to take in the views along the way...
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| Harry, Jack, Nina, Georgia, Ashley and Ella |
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| The main street of Walhalla |
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| Walhalla |
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| Having a picnic |
After a picnic lunch we explored the town where now only 12 people reside, before visiting the dead centre of town, where it's believed the people were buried upright to save space...
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| The Walhalla cemetery |
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| The kids bring life to the cemetery |
We then headed back down the mountain to pack up and head to the Cheney's holiday shack, situated on a lake in Metung, near Lakes Entrance.
Along the way we passed some of the coal fired power stations in the area which supply Melbourne and surrounding regions...
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| Coal fired power station, Traralgon |
Friday the 13th of April was spent on the Cheney's ski boat... with all the kids.... including the big kids, having some fun on the water in some beautiful autumn sunshine...
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| An unwelcome visitor, a bat, clings for dear life to the boat roof before our screams scare him away |
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| Jack, Nina & Harry, ready to hit the water |
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| The kids get game |
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| Having fun on the biscuit |
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| Richard trying to get fancy |
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| Shayne as Borat |
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| Megan, the award winning skipper |
The big boys, Richard and Shayne will be into the Voltaren tonight - there is no doubt...
Lunch was at Paynesville, a town also situated on the Lake...
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| Lunch |
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| The ski boat |
And then we went koala hunting on nearby Raymond Island... we were in luck... spying at least half a dozen koalas... the first we have ever seen in the wild...
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| A baby koala, clinging to its mummy |
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| Another of the Raymond Island locals |
The trip home was more sightseeing of the area, which is really picturesque...
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| The sun setting on the water |
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| The Lakes |
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| Georgia and Nina keeping warm & chilling out all at once |
Jack cut a lonely figure on the water on the way home, he was the only one still keen to get wet... he had earlier tried his luck with skiing and did a great job getting up... unfortunately it wasn't long enough for me to get a picture but no doubt he'll be at it again tomorrow.
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| Jack goes it alone on the way home |
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| The Cheney's lakes shack |
It was then a game of footy on the front lawn of the house, before fish and salad for dinner and then the real footy on TV while the adults sat and shot the breeze around the campfire.
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