Old Gippstown Historical Village | Old Gippstown VIC

Thursday: 3 April 12pm – 3pm 

Community display at the Old Gippstown Historical Village  – Old Gippstown VIC

Today, we had no scheduled displays, so we had a more leisurely start to the day. We had arranged for Glen to be at the church by 10:00 am to attach the “Bubsie” trailer, and then we set off on the trip through Traralgon, Morwell, and Moe to Warragul, where we had booked a caravan park for the next four days.

During the journey, we kept an eye out for any potential opportunities to do a display “on the fly.” However, while we saw some suitable locations, there was limited parking available for the vans and trailer. This highlighted the importance of local organizations making advance plans for our visits, as they are better positioned to identify appropriate venues and arrange for media coverage.

On a positive note, we have seen some creative ways that communities have planned events, as demonstrated in Sale the previous day, where the local members had organised everything very well, even on short notice. 

As we approached Moe, we noticed the historic village of Old Gippstown, which had spaces in the car park for trailers or caravans. We decided to stop and inquire if they would be interested in having us display the historic vehicle. They were delighted to welcome us, just as a tour bus of people from Springvale arrived for the afternoon. They also informed us that the Moe community had arranged for a display on Saturday afternoon, following the church service in the morning.

While there were not many people passing through the village in the afternoon, aside from the tour bus, those who did showed great interest in the story. We also had the opportunity to talk with several of the staff and volunteers, who enjoyed showing us some of their own old vehicles.

We left Old Gippstown just after 3 pm to continue on to Warragul and check into the caravan park. After setting up the van and Glen pitching his swag, we took some time to do the laundry, cook dinner, and catch up on administrative tasks, such as printing off running sheets for the next week and uploading photographs from the trip. As the night temperatures continued to drop in this region, we made sure to add an extra blanket to the bed, and Glen even commented that he may need to find his beanie.