Back to Mallacoota

 Molly (after Molly Sugden, Mrs Slocum in "Are you being served?")



This finishes off the trip with a drive in the new car from Bunda St to Mallacoota.  I was now getting used to the vehicle and even though the weather was ungood - basically 8/8ths cloud and drizzling - set off happily.  The traffic as far as Cooma was quite heavy and judging by what we saw Sanitarium was including driver's licences in packets of Weetbix.
A novelty with the car was that it announces road hazards such as speed cameras.  There are also a couple of other, slightly puzzling things which get a mention:
  • High accident zone: this only appeared for one stretch near Williamstown but was repeated several times over a 2km length of road.  Presumably the ACT Roads people have tagged several small segments.
  • Entering a town.  This only happened in NSW from memory at Bredbo and Nimmitabel (not Cooma or Bombala.  Very strange.
 We had been advised not to use cruise control for an extended period on trip as I could in someway train the car to run in this fashion.  It made me realise how much more tiring it was to drive by fleshware, and Frances took over at Bombala.

The cloudy sky was about as good as the weather got. Note the white vehicle in the distance: the first Britz camper we have seen for a while.  Good that some tourists and backpackers are returning.
This is a view of the cockpit.  Note the green trim which caused the salesman to warn us about it.  We are getting to know how to interpret the information display.
At about this point we discussed what we should call the entity which talks to us in this car.  The voice of  Google maps is Polly (after the character in Fawlty Towers) and I had initially called this one Molly (Sugden as Mrs Slocum in "Are You Being Served").  That didn't seem quite right and others we thought about were:

  • Gina after Gina Riley (The Games, Kim in Kath and Kim)
  • Ruth after Ms Cracknell (Many things notably Gary McDonalds Mum in Mother and Son)
  • Claire after Grayson Perry - mainly because I reckon Grayson is the world's best transvestite potter - and he comes from Essex.
This is a work in progress.

As we got down the road we met some road repairs, or at least a site where the road needs some repair after the Cann River has gouged into its bank.  The site has been like this for some weeks.
We swapped back at Cann River as I was feeling less knackered.  After the Hay Plains it was good to see the forest on Mt Drummer.
The road works here continue - sort off.  With quite heavy rain (on which the camera focused) and it being Saturday there was no work happening as we came through.
A very successful trip which in view of the weather and pelican/muppet count on the road was done in pretty good time.

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