St Arnaud Nat Park - Cherrypool Highway Park

St Arnaud National Park gets a thumbs up from us, a lovely camp site in the bush with basic amenities and a water tap, plenty of fire wood and fire pits and picnic tables, well done to the Shire.



Vickie and i walked to the damn wall it was hard to believe that 10 years ago the valley we were looking at was full of water. We walked around the rim along a man made walk trail, plenty of Kangaroo's grazing and flocks of Major Mitchell Cockatoo's squarking their calls. Back at camp i decided to get some firewood cut to take with us, i went to start the truck and was surprised the battery's were down on power, the truck has two large starting batteries and both were less than a year old, no accessories run off the starting batteries and with no warning they had decided to pack it in.






I have a 3rd battery fitted under the truck to power the accessories but it was down on power due to running the engel but i gave it a go with some jumper leads but with no luck. I could have stuffed around and got the batteries out of the van but being AGM deep cycle and worth a few dollars i didn't want to risk damaging them when i knew there was a farmer down the road, so the next morning i set out to go get some help. The walk was around 5k's and i saw hundred's of kangaroos, this area is very picturesque now that it is green with recent rain.

Peter the farmer drove me back and after letting a good charge get into the batteries i was able to start the truck. With much thanks we said goodbye and drove to Stawell to see about getting the batteries checked out as they were still under warranty. Peter Baker owner of Baker Automotive and authorized Century Battery agent confirmed the batteries had failed and organized two new ones to be delivered the next day, so we went and camped up at the Gateway Caravan Park in Stawell. That evening i had some very painful chest pains, Vickie insisted i get to the Hospital to be checked over. The Stawell Hospital staff were excellent, i was seen straight away and had an ECG and oxygen the local Doctor came in and thought it best if i stay in overnight and have a heart monitor fitted and another ECG, X-Ray plus some blood tests done in the morning. That meant Vickie staying in the van by herself overnight so i was concerned that she was comfortable with that, i shouldn't have been as she jumped at the chance to have a peaceful sleep by herself.

I didn't get the results back untill 2pm the next day and was given the all clear, feeling silly i was told that i had done the right thing and better safe than sorry. Then it was back to have the new batteries fitted and another night in the van park, the weather was cold & wet so we just lazed around playing cards. The next day we drove down to Ararat and then back up to Halls Gap and into the Grampians, what a lovely area this is, but the weather was still wet & cold but we did get to visit McKenzie Falls and walk some of the walk trails. We stayed a night at a camp site called Smith Mill Campground, [# 545CAW] in the Grampians and left this morning to drive to Horsham and then head back down again towards Hamilton.




Tonight we are camped beside the river at Cherrypool Highway Park [#706CAW] at present the sun is out but temperature is still around 11 degree's outside, thankfully we have the Webasto diesel heater working perfectly to keep us warm.