Even driving around the outskirts of Melbourne takes forever! Left the MotorInn at Dandenong at 9:30 with a quick stop for gas and a car wash (the car had disappeared under a layer of red dust overnight) but we didn't escape the suburbs until 11:30. Finally arrived in Ballarat around 1pm and went straight to the information centre. Very helpfull and found us a nice motel a bit out of town in Sebastopol, the Begonia. Unpacked then went back up the road to Soverei...

Having had a hearty dinner and good night's sleep we ventured off to the Historic Bega Cheese Centre. A must see, according to the brochure Ian was reading last night. It was OK, but very small and not really what any of us would consider a 'must see' and took it to mean this really wasn't the coast for us. The decision was therefore made unanimously to head directly for the outskirts of Melbourne. Always a favorite of ours. So after 5 hours of forests, motel li...

Before leaving Canberra we drove up to Red Hill lookout for a gorgeous morning view of the city. Then an out of town round trip to the Canberra Space Centre. Well worth the visit lots to see and read, the dishes were also rather impressive. After a quick bite to eat and update of the site we headed back out to the coast. The scenery was pretty much the same as on the way in forests and empty paddocks. We had considered stopping at Batemans Bay but it was still...

Time to head south for Canberra today. We took the coastal route as far as Wollongong via the Royal National Park. There's something about the forests here that make the view of a peaceful river or the coastline all the more spectacular. We tried in vain to find the pretty harbour that was shown in the guidebook at Wollongong, a quick lunch at McDonald's and inland we went. The landscape changes from forest to pasture, almost as far as the eye could see. Yet m...

A quickish brekkie on the balcony before we set of for a fun day in the Blue Mountains. The weather was gorgeous and warm as we left, however the closer we got to Leura the lower the outside air temperature read in the car. Once we arrived, Ian and Tom quickly changed from shorts to longs. It was so cold they didn't even brave a walk across the carpark to the toilets, instead it was the old kiwi at the beach routine beside the car. Leura hadn't changed much si...