Our first day in Melbourne was something of a culture shock after 11 days in relatively quiet places. The streets were packed with city workers and tourists and the traffic (cars and trams) very heavy. We battled the crowds and went to the National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square which is devoted to Australian art. (There is another NGV building which houses its international collection.) The Australian collection dates from the 1800s to today and is...

Next day (10 March), we drove from Bendigo to Ballarat which wasn't far - 120km. We stopped en route at Malden which is a lovely well-preserved town from the gold rush days. It has some attractive buildings made from local stone and is very quaint. The remains of the Beehive Mining Company have been preserved as an open air museum which we walked around.  We carried on to Castlemaine which is a bigger town with a mix of lovely Victorian buildings a...

Next day (8 March), we drove the 400km to Bendigo - apart from flights, the longest leg of our journey. We quickly left the vineyards of the Mildura (Sunraysia) Region and travelled through the wheat country of Victoria. The harvest was finished so all we could see was golden brown stubble, with a few green trees, for as far as the eye could see. It was very flat country and very dry.  For most of the journey on the Calder Highway, we drove alongside the rail...

The next day, we went for another walk along the river front at Renmark and then drove to Mildura in Victoria. On arrival, we discovered that we'd forgotten a backpack so Robert drove all the way back to Renmark - a 300km round trip!  Meanwhile, Margaret wandered around Mildura which is a large town on the border of Victoria and New South Wales. It's laid out on a grid system with very wide streets - similar to Renmark. Mildura is also on the banks of ...

The next day (4 March), we left Tanunda for Renmark. We drove through Nurioopta where we had planned to stop but it seemed a very ordinary country town so we just drove around and carried on. Our route took us through Truro, named after the Cornish Truro, and then Blanchetown where we stopped and checked out Lock 1 on the Murray River. We passed through this lock in 2000 when we had a houseboat holiday on the Murray. We hoped to see the lock in operation this...