Caboose

After Tasmania I flew up to Melbourne and spent a few days there before hiring another car and travelling around a bit on my way to Sydney.

Melbourne’s a pretty nice place, although accommodation was mostly full and very expensive because of the tennis. It has good public transport and I liked the atmosphere, especially wandering around Queen Victoria Market. While I was there I visited the Shrine of Remembrance, St Kilda, the Old Melbourne Gaol (which includes a former police station and courthouse) and the Melbourne Museum.

Once I picked up the hire car I quickly escaped Melbourne and headed for the Great Ocean Road. The inland bits aren’t great but along the coast it’s beautiful — but busy — with plenty of laybys and car parks to stop and look at the view. I took some pictures at Loch Ard Gorge, site of one of the shipwrecks this stretch of coast is notorious for. That night I stayed at the wonderful Bimbi Park campsite, it’s all been recently refurbished and I had a nice little 4-bed bunkroom all to myself. The trees at the campsite are home to lots of koalas, which makes for good photos but not necessarily a good night’s sleep; excited koalas make pretty unpleasant screaming and grunting noises in the night.

After the Great Ocean Road it was on to Ballarat, Bendigo and towards Canberra.