Gunbower Island, Victoria

Nestled in amongst the trees Gunbower Island provides a tranquil escape from the busyness of Melbourne’s CBD. Except when you are on a boy’s weekend….

Gunbower Island is located 220km north of Melbourne and stretches from Gunbower Victoria to Cohuna and Koondrook on the Murray River. Gunbower Island in known as Australia’s largest inland Island which spans over 50 km in length and an area of 22,000 hectares . The Island is home to a population of native animals such as Kangaroos, Emus, Goannas, Possums, Snakes and over 100 different species of birds.

Source: http://www.gunbowerisland.com/ 

We headed out on our Boys weekend camping trip early Friday afternoon to try and cover the ~270Km up to Gunbower before it got too late. A stop or two along the way and we eventually made it to our camping spot at about 9pm – not as early as anticipated. But we did have to contend with a flat tyre and a loss of mobile signal (which meant that we had no idea where the other half of the party were).

Pre-arrival adventures

We realised that we had gone too far down a road and decided to turn around and head back the way we had come. This meant going off the dirt track. In doing so, and being less cautious than we should have been, a stump deflated our rear right tyre in about 2 seconds flat. The quickest one I have ever seen. It then took us a while to find all the equipment we needed to change the tyre and actually change it. Once done however, we managed to find the rest of the party in about 5 minutes.

The Campsite

Our campsite was located several Kms from the town of Gunbower. A great spot right on the river’s edge that had plenty of room for the ten of us that inhabited it for the weekend.

The Fishing

Was not existent. Nearly everyone had a rod (or two) out in the water, but nothing was biting. We managed a couple of small carp later in the day, but no amount of cheese, white bait, steak, worms, grubs or bread could entice the fish. If anyone knows of better ways to catch, what appears to be, the elusive Murray Cod please let me know.

Time flies when you’re having fun. Apparently. The weekend was over before we knew it and we had to pack up and leave for the 3 – 4 hour journey back to Melbourne. The guys with Swags took all of about 10 minutes to get all of the things together and into their vehicles. We on the other hand took about 1.5 hours to get the tent and trailer packed away and ready to roll. We hit the road at about 12pm and got home by about 4pm.

While it may not have been the leisurely trip that I was expecting, it was certainly eventful and enjoyable. Next stop, Marysville!

 

Gunbower Gallery

The Hilton at Gunbower

Waterline on The Murray River

Gunbower Camp

Cooking up a storm

The Gums

 

A fiery rant.

Some people are just plain ignorant. Some are just @ssholes. Some are both.

IGNORAMUS:

ig.no.ra.mus  noun

Plural ig.no.ra.mus.es / ig.no.ra.mi

:- an utterly ignorant person

IGNORANUS:

ig.nor.an.us noun

Plural ig.nor.an.us.es

:- an utterly ignorant person, who is also an @sshole.

And now here’s the story, you decide which is appropriate.

Day Trippers

Some people just don’t think of others. We arrived at Boar Gully campsite to find about 40 hikers had made full use of the parking area, and our camping spot. Let me explain. Most of the campsites (I’m not talking bush camping here) are clearly marked out with bollards. The bollards are there to ensure that vehicles do not take up residence in an area where you are to put a tent. In campsites that have spots for camper trailers/caravans, the bollards demarcate the location of where the trailer/caravan is to be set up. In our case, the day trippers had parked several cars in the space reserved for our trailer.

We were very fortunate to have arrived just as they were about to start their walk. A few of the ladies who were not participating in the walk and who we had some words with about moving the vehicles ,suggested that we “just wait a few hours”. Bollocks. Get your people back here and move the vehicles. Eventually I had to run after the group and call them back to move their cars. And they were upset that I had done so! Well, don’t park your vehicles in a spot reserved for camping!

Second rant. A few hours after we had set up camp and were wondering about the campsite and surrounds, we noticed that a fire had been left smoldering in one of the other camping spots. Again, part of the group of day trippers had had lunch in one of the camp spots (nothing wrong with that) and had made a fire (nothing wrong with that either). However, hey had neglected to completely extinguish their fire and one of the logs had rolled free of the fire pit and was smoldering ominously near the base of to tree. I shudder to think what could have been had we not moved it back to the safety of the fire pit and ensured that the rest of the fire was put out with a few liters of water – from a tap not 10m away.

Unattended fires are very dangerous things. And after the horrors of the fires here in Australia in 2009 I am very surprised that some people are still clueless. Unattended fires can wreak havoc in the bush. Bush fire anyone??

Secondly, lots of campers have small kids, like us for example. If you have simply left your fire to go out all by itself then it is highly likely that the coals are still smoldering and extremely hot for hours. If a small child happens to run over/ walk through/play in what looks like a sand pit then a hospital visit is on the cards. Of the 250 burn cases (children) last year, 33 of them were from camp fires.

If you don’t know how to put out a fire properly, or have no idea about the dangers of fires, read this document. Produced by the Queensland Fire & Rescue Service:

https://www.fire.qld.gov.au/communitysafety/freesafetydownloads/pdf/campfire_safety.pdf

National Parks are there for everyone not just you, don’t be a selfish git.

Think about others and the environment next time you go camping.

 

Erecting the Tent. A Time Lapse.

A quick video of us setting up the extra large tent: