Welcome from Lakes Entrance.

Well a lots happend since the kast blog.

Saturday we went out for a wine tasting trip around Canberra. We tried a lot of nice wine at four different vineyards and the weather was amazing. After our tastings we went home for a quick snack before going to a party with some of Allan's friends. We didn't stop drinking. There was a lot of s*** chat - I don't remember most of it, I am glad I didn't jump in the pool!

Sunday - big write off! I'm not sure I could manage much before lunch and Allan couldn't much before Monday. So in the afternoon Jeanene took us to the national library to see an exhibition on famous hand writing. Luckily it only covered a few rooms or we wouldn't have made it round (ps we didn't leave the house til about 3pm). I remember saying I'm never drinking again - that lasted til Tuesday.

Monday I was a bit more fresh so we borrowed the car and drove to the national war memorial; which is actually a memorial and huge museum. We were there for about 4 hours before we decided that we should have allowed two days for this. We learnt about Galipolli and what happened there in 1915. We also saw the section on WW2 from the australian point of view. There was a lot less on the normandy invasions and a lot more on the pacific and the kocoda trail. Amazing fact though 1 in 22 died in the German POW camps and 1 in 3 died in the Japanese ones. Which showed how bad the conditions were in them.

After the memorial we drove to the top of Ainslie hill and looked over the city.

Tuesday we decided to a car and drive to Melbourne about 900k or on Aussie roads 10 hours; over the next three days - stopping at such well known locations as Bega (famous for cheese), Tahtra (coastal speck), Lakes Entrance (where we are now) and Ramsey street.

So Tuesday Claire drove our little Yaris from Canberra to Tathra. We stopped at a viewing point in the snowy mountains for a picnic and enjoyed the view (no snow though). After that we cruised down to Bega (apparently a big cheesy place in Australia) Unfortunatly they had to stop doing tours due to H&S - poor! Luckily we could still sample the chees - Yeah! We weren't sure weather to stay there but the views were a bit crap so we pushed on to the coast.

At Tathra we found a lot of families and caravans on the beach. Claire also got breathalised by the police (lucky we didn't leave Monday) and not 15 minutes after they had packed up we saw a women in an estate take out the crash barrier - ironic?

We found a motel in the only pub in the village (scary thought) and then went to have dinner at a nearby restaurant - I had Tazmanian Salmon and Claire had twice cooked pork.... yum.

This morning it was my go to drive. We headed along the coastal road through Eden to gippsland. We stopped at a petting zoo and Claire tried to walk off with the puppies (oh god). We stopped in Marimbula at the lookout and had lunch, we failed to see and whales though - but it was bloody hot and they are only meant to come in the winter.

After that we drove for a while though some clearly fire damaged woods. Half the trees are covered in ash and missing most their leaves. It got soo hot that we stopped for ice cream about an hour before getting to Lakes Entrance.

Now we are in the motel after having a HUGE seafood platter tea and walking along the sea front. Its been pretty windy this evening so we didn't go up to the look out.

We should be in Melbourne tomorrow sometime before 6pm.

Mr P