Sunday 19th January - Mansfield to Molesworth
Warmer night again. Only getting down to 15.5 last night and 32.2 during the day. A pleasant drive to Molesworth with a short stop at Bonnie Doon to take some photos. No point in us being early as both powered sites were taken up last night. Along the way we saw signs and also pedestrian/bike bridges highlighting the Great Victorian Rail Trail. The couple and their daughter were going to ride from Mansfield to Bonnie Doon - a distance of about 20km, along the trail. Clive has outdone himself yet again! We arrived in Molesworth about noon and saw a van park sign at the entrance of town, but no other signs. Clive hadn't entered the GPS points for this one as he thought it would be easy to find. Driving through town to the end and still nothing. About 300m past town was a rest area, so we pulled in there and entered the co-ordinates. You can only turn left from the rest area, so the GPS advised to travel 13km down the road before we could do a U-turn. Luckily, Clive found a right hand turn that was large enough for us and the van to turn around. Driving back, the GPS bought us to a sign, "Molesworth Recreation reserve and Caravan Park". No wonder we missed it. A standard blue caravan park sign would be good. Now have you heard the expression of 'a one-horse town?' Well, this is it. There a narrow track advising the park is 300m down this road. We hope that we don't meet another van. If the second spot gets taken then we are practically on top of each other. There is plenty of space for non-powered camping, so this appears to be their target market. No TV reception, with phone and internet very patchy. We're almost off the grid. Lost of trees and hills close by, so no point in trying the satellite dish either. Not to worry, we have plenty to watch. We are here for two nights, but there is no point in unhitching as there is no-where to go around here that we want. We ha a thunderstorm alert, but so far some thunder and a bit of soaking rain, so hopefully this will help with the bushfires. There's a total fire ban on the park for safety reasons, and some of the campers have been complaining. There is a very good camp kitchen, so they can cook all sorts of food including roast in the ovens. Clive had a walk around half the oval as it was starting to rain. The camp grounds back onto the Goulburn River. This was flowing along quite nicely, maybe because of the rains? There is a large cricket oval in the centre of the camp grounds. In 1859, John Sloan, built the first punt to cross the Goulburn River and built the town's first hotel - The Punt Inn. This Recreation Reserve was established in 1902, and the Reserve remained mainly bushland for the next 60 years. In 1906-91 work started on the oval and in 62-63 the first cricket match was played here. Over the next 25 years powered sites were established on the top bank and then the lower bank. These are now permanent sites - hence the only two powered sites for vans.