New South Wales to Victoria

So we are now into a more settled time on our road trip in Australia. We seem to have travelled miles and indeed that is the case. I imagine we have seen parts of Oz which loads of Australians have yet to see or may never see. Each part is different. We have travelled from Queensland into New South Wales and are now in Victoria and thankfully having better weather. The common threads wherever we have been along the coast have been magnificent scenery, huge huge trees and the most glorious beaches - but the further south you go the colder the water gets, I have to admire the hearty bathers and surfers who brave the water in the south. The climate in Queensland is tropical so it is rather humid all the time whereas in the south, where we are now, it is much fresher with a wonderful clear warmth. Clearly the flowering plant Agapanthus loves this southern climate as we see them everywhere and they grow like weeds, I'm quite jealous as I struggle at home to get mine to flower every year.

Anyway, a bit about our journey here. We have had a wonderful time and seen some tremendous things and places. Again a map of Oz may help for you to see where we have been. Picking up from the last episode of the blog we are still in New South Wales and after Wollongong made our way to Batemans Bay, a pretty lakeside town near the Murramang National park. We liked it there and decided that we deserved a bit of a rest, we had good accommodation, and wanted to explore the area.

We had a lovely couple of days just exploring around and being tourists. We came across this beach at the end of a winding road, it was almost deserted and as we walked along the beach we realised that our footsteps were making the strangest noise, the nearest we could get to describe it was like dogs whining, it was really peculiar as the sand was fine and white and looked no different to sand on any other beach except for this noise.

While in Batemans Bay we started to have really annoying computer problems. Clever John seems to have resolved most of the problem but there were times when I feared for the windows in the motel!
Moving on from Batemans Bay we decided to take a detour inland and visit Canberra, the capital of the country. We had been given mixed reviews of Canberra, it seems people either loved or hated the place. I think we liked it. We arrived on Saturday early afternoon and I must say I thought that the place had been evacuated. It was absolutely dead, there was nobody around. I had read about an exhibition of the costumes of the Ballet Russe which was at the Canberra Museum. On trying to find the exhibition we went to the wrong museum but had a pleasant hour wandering around a display of photos and artefacts about the history of Canberra. On the way out, there was a room with a display of someone's collection of Miss Piggy souvenirs, toys and pictures, it was all a bit surreal.

Eventually we found the National Museum and went to the the exhibition of the Ballet Russe costumes. Some of these had been designed by Matisse and some by Picasso as well as other well known costume designers. It was a huge collection, they even had the ballet shorts worn by Nijinski, it was truly fabulous. The incredible part was there were so few people there. It was a time limited exhibition and had it been in the UK it would have been crowded out. The quiet was a bonus for us but where are the people of Canberra I wonder?

As well as the exhibition we visited the Parliament building. An impressive place, it was completed in 1988 and demonstrates the best of the 80's architecture. Amazingly, visitors have access to all of the building and can wander at will.
The centre of the city is symmetrical and the buildings line up. The parliament building is high on a hill and the views are dramatic; in one direction to look over the old Parliament building and back in the other direction along the avenue to the War Memorial, where we went the following morning.
In the War Memorial there is the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior and in the entrance is a mark on the floor which is in line with the tomb and the Parliament, about two miles distant. This is in line with the office of the premier, and was designed to remind the head of state of the sacrifice made by Australians in all the wars in which Australia has been a part. The War Memorial is also a museum and we thought a visit would take us about an hour at the most but we were there all morning and could have been there all day. We arrived at opening time and were fortunate to link up with a guided tour. The chap who conducted us was fantastic, showed us some of the major displays and took 90 minutes to show us the highlights and to explain quite a bit about Australia's role in the Boer war and the two world wars. There were some super dioramas, sympathetic displays, and interesting explanations of artefacts. In one display an actress re-enacted the role of a WRAF radio operator in the second world war, it was quite moving. If you go the Canberra this is a "must do".

From Canberra we travelled on down the coast to Mirimbula and stayed in Pambula. The highlights here were the wonderful National Park and beaches, there are fabulous beaches in this part of Australia.

And, oh yes, before I forget, that evening we found a group of kangaroos grazing in the village and whilst we were snapping the scene a kookaburra let us know that he was in residence in the gum tree above us. This was Australia in a nutshell.

We then entered Victoria and drove along the coast to stay in a place called Foster, again wonderful scenery and trees the size of sky scrapers, just incredible. One of the most interesting parts for us here was driving down to a place called Wilsons Promontory (known as "Prom") which is the most southerly part of mainland Australia. Whilst there, we realised that by flying into Darwin we had been in the most northerly point, when we visited Byron Bay we were in the most Easterly part and now we were in the most southerly part. It reinforced for us the extent of our travels in Oz.

It had been our intention to stay in Melbourne but as we travelled through we decided that seeing Melbourne from the car was enough and wanted to stay outside the city. We looked at the map and were attracted to a place called Phillip Island, mainly because it had a town called Cowes and it reminded us of home!. What a good decision it was as we had a super time. We found a good place to stay which always helps, visited a chocolate factory and bought some chocolate which helps too. The highlight however was the Penguin Parade. Last year at home we had watched a couple of programmes about these little penguins who built their nests and then layed their eggs in burrows in the sand dunes and then walked for ages up hills and across difficult terrain, back and forth, to feed their young. By happy chance we had arrived at the very place where this happened. The penguins arrive on the beach at dusk, assembling of shore in great rafts of birds who come ashore together and make their way up the beach. Having made their way across the beach they then waddle up the sand dunes to their nests. The tiny penguins, only 12 inches tall at most, have to walk up to two kilometres to get to their nests. They are so intent on their task that they ignore the human audience on the boardwalk as they soldier on to find their chicks. It was an amazing sight, there were hundreds of them. We were fortunate that at this time of year there are a lot of chicks; some almost ready for independent living having lost most of their young plumage, others still like little balls of grey fluff. Apparently the parent is often at sea for about three days so some some of the chicks were very hungry and would mob each and every adult as they went past looking for their own chick, it was quite a sight to see. We stayed for hours just watching this display of nature, how lucky is that?
Our last stop before setting off on the Great Ocean Road was at Queenscliff, a little sea side town which reminded us of old England. The town was quaint, with lovely old buildings and the Guest House we stayed in was like going back in time. What was highlighted here was the difficult economic time this country is experiencing. I would not be exaggerating to say that over half the businesses in the town were for sale and boards were up on many of the properties. This was something evident all along the coast. I can only assume that many of the homes for sale are holiday homes which are too expensive to maintain today. The businesses for sale reflect the drop in tourist numbers and difficult times globally.
The next adventure for us is the Great Ocean Road, can't wait!!!!