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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tour (yes) Magical (not so much), Mystery (very much)

Image
This covers the last day of our trip to Dunkeld and is almost completely devoted to the drive back to Mallacoota.  We rose from our beds promptly and did a short stroll around the walled garden, packed the car and headed off.  There was a small diversion to drop the photo album we had been lent back in the meter box at the Catholic Church. We set off at pretty much exactly 0800 hours with Polly (we were using Google Maps rather than the Mazda system) suggesting we'd be home by 1710.  The drive along the Glenelg Highway to Streatham was uneventful apart from getting foggy near Streatham.  Once we turned North the only excitement was the number of wind turbines.  As we approached those photographed on the way down  we could see a lot more that had been out of sight heading South.  Frances did a count and concluded that it was over 100 turbines in a number of farms. As we approached Melbourne Polly asked if we wished to switch to a faster route as there was congestion ahead.  Wedid so
Read more

Heading to various lakes

Image
 We have headed off on a trip to visit various lakes in Victoria and central NSW.  The main aim is birding, but there might be some interesting flowers around as well.  The first day stops in Melbourne to see daughter and small people as driving straight to Kerang would be a bit much for us these days. The route is quite standard with a first stop in Bruthen to get a pie and a loaf of bread at the bakery.  The pie (steak and kidney) was well up to standard, scoring 8.5 on the official scale. I ate the pie in the park on the opposite side of the road.  Frances had noticed this object on our last visit but here is a photograph. The plaque explains what it is.  I have been thinking about how the pilot felt dropping from 40,000 feet to 500 feet with no motor.   Frances took over driving after a fuel stop in Bairnsdale - diesel at 197.9 cents a litre vs 237.9 in Mallacoota.  I set up up the Mazda satnav (Sheila) first but then thought that was going to send us through Sale to look at all th
Read more

Towards Canberra

Image
 We took a stroll around the centre of Leeton to start our day.  The built environment of Leeton is interesting as the town was designed by Walter Burly Griffin the planner of Canberra.  Also the centre was built in the 1920s so has a lot of art deco buildings. The first image ia clump of palm trees, of which there are a lot. The War Memorial is art deco in style. Probably the best example of the architecture is the Roxy Theatre at the centre of the town. Here are some other bits and pieces along Pine St. This is the local newspaper which is still going! These water storage tanks were designed by WBG. This is possibly the most impressive building and houses the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission. Next door is the rather more modest Shire Office with some nice art deco elements. We went back to the Wetlands and scored an early contender for BAD with 2 Juvenile Blue-faced Honeyeaters in a tree in the car park.  This is the Glossy Ibis Shelter in the NW of the area, and the map
Read more