Gippsland Ho! Day 1
Thursday-Sunday I was on another roadtrip adventure with my parents, this time to explore the east of this state (Victoria). I was even well on my way to contemporaneously posting updates, the first day having written up most of the day into an entry while in the car. But then at the end of the day when I went to finish it, livejournal prompted me to "restore from draft," which has never been a bad idea before. Even though I could see the top part of what I'd written on the screen behind the pop up window, if I clicked "no" maybe it would clear that. Anyway, it ended up restoring a previous already-posted entry and I compeltely lost everything I'd written. Back button didn't bring it back, it was all just gone. ): I absolutely hate re writing what I just wrote, so I was too demoralized to write it again, and then I couldn't update teh other days and have it out of order soo no field reports. But now I'm back home on my computer (and my parents are currently somewhere over the Pacific) and I'll have another hack at it.
(Day 1 travel)
My across-the-street neighbor likes to go on vacation to a town called Mallacoota at the far eastern end of the state. Often while he's been giving me a haircut (which he does in exchange for honey), I've heard the virtues of this paradise extolled. By his account it is a wonderful place. Plus, it's the furthest East one can go in this state and I'm fond of crossing off goals such as visiting a places extremities. I've been to the Western border of the state. I've been as far south as one can drive in the state (it's an overnight hike to the furthest tip, which I'd absolutely lvoe to do but it's really really hard to get a booking for the campsite one must stay at to do so). The furthest north point I suspect is mainly hot and dry and boring but it's still on my list (though looking at a map I see that Mildura, to which I've been, is actually not far off, I suppose I can legitimately say in a general sense I've been to the north end of the state).
But anyway, so I wanted to go to Mallacoota. My parents didn't seem sure we could make it in the short amount of time (four days) available, but we'd take it one day at a time and see how we went.
So we set out around 9am bound for Walhalla in the mountains. It was my inclination to take the ferry across the bay as I usually do since I loathe driving in Melbourne. But dad pointed out that would take an hour longer. He's driving though so if he wants to drive through Melbourne... ::shrug::. As it happens, I usually avoid tollroads like the plague both on principal and because I don't know how to pay for them; and this causes me to have to slog through surface streets. The rental car had an account with the tollroads so we just stayed on the main highway, which becomes a tollroad and becomes a tunnel through the middle of the city before coming out and resuming being a normal highway. It was quick and painless!
We decided to stop for a quick break in the town of Bunyip which was just off our route. When I was little we'd had a pet bunny named Bunyip, and as well mom has a friend who married a guy from this very town of Bunyip. The bunyip is a mythical Australian swamp monster. With a population of 3,000, this was a classic rural small town, with one grand old "hotel" (pub), brick, two stories, wraparound balcony on the second floor, classic style. It was hot (in the 80s?), we had some ice cream.
From Bunyip to Walhalla was another hour and twenty minutes. First mostly along the flat lowlands until the town of Moe (an amusing name, pronounced "mo-ee" which makes it slightly less silly), and then we wound up into the mountains and forests of tall trees. While we were oohing and awing at the forest I reflected that the Otway Forest just beside my house is at least as nice but because it's practically in my back yard I tend to take it for granted and not ooh and aah at it as much as I perhaps would if I had to drive four hours to get to it.
Walhalla is a cute little former mining town in the mountains. The classic gold rush era houses (restored and/or reconstructions in this case) sit in a very very narrow valley. There's a narrow gauge railway that runs a bit of a way through the valley which I was hoping we could ride but I didn't realize it's only currently operating Sat, Sun and Wednesday. The website listed the times it ran but hadn't indicated the limited number of days as far as I could find, so that was a disappointment. There's also a mine tour, which I was only mildly interested in, until I read about how a big machinery chamber had been hollowed out deep in the mountain and then I kind of wanted to see if, but if the tours had been available this day the last tour time was passed anyway.
We lunch (cheese sandwiches w pickles) at a picnic table and then went walking along a scenic trail along the canyon wall. There were signs indicating the direction for "the amazing raCe." I was/am very curious if this was THE Amazing Race (the TV show) or just a local event that used the same name, if anyone happens to know if The Amazing Race has recently been through there? Along the trail there was various abandoned mine machinery, and several blocked off entrances to former mines. We also saw some interesting butterflies we later identified as wood whites, black cockatoos, a kookaburra, and a snake on the trail! The snake is believed to have been a copperhead (not the American copper head, but venomous itself). We encouraged it off the trail by tapping the ground near it with a stick and then edged past it.
From there we proceeded back to the bridges across the Thompson river (the modern road bridge beside the old rail bridge), where a school group seemed to be endinga kayak trip.
From there we headed back out of the mountains down to Traralgon. Traralgon is a larger town of 27,000. The origin of the name is officially unclear, but I think it sounds like the name of a dragon (the town of Yarragon which we passed through earlier, I posit is also a dragon, Traralgon's younger brother. It is unclear how dragons and bunyips get along). We decided to change it up here for dinner and get Thai (my parents are starting to catch on I think, that all Australian restaurants of "Australian cuisine" have the same six items on the menu and you eventually need to go to an ethnic restaurant for more variety). We were suspicious that no Thai persons seemed to be in evidence, the staff just being your typical bemulleted rural Australians, but the food was surprisingly good -- though my "Thai iced tea" had no cream in it, it was just an iced tea.
We had just booked a motel here and I wasn't expecting much, being as from my experience Australian hotels are often at least one star less than they advertise themselves to be, but this one was actually surprisingly nice. I was expecting just a cheap motel but it was cozy and nicely appointed, with complementary little cookies and jams and things in the room. So if you're ever in Traralgon I recommend you stay at the Garden View Motel (no garden actually in evidence though).
Also Traralgon was a remarkably happening place on a Thursday night. Maybe because it was a pleasant warm summer evening, the outdoor dining areas of many restaurants were packed, many pedestrians strolling the downtown area, and a long line snaked out the door of an ice cream place.
And that was day one! From here it would only be four hours to Mallacoota BUT there didn't appear to be any lodging with vacancies there! Would we make it??