Heading to various lakes

 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 the traffic lights.  So I connected up my phone to see how Polly went.  Here is the Polly screen on the Mazda console: it worked very well.   

I find it interesting to watch how the time of arrival varies, as this indicates how we drive compared to the expected speed limit and traffic.  At one point we had got to arrival at 1544  (little traffic) but a stop to swap back to me driving got is back to 1547 which is when we arrived.  

The 28km turn was the entrance to Stratford a pleasant town.  The courthouse has been converted to a Gallery and theatre (for the Shakespeare Festival).

The River Avon is on the Melbourne side of town and was named after a River in Scotland, not the one linked with the Bard!

Polly sent us on the wider detour through Maffra rather than the tighter one she has previously used.  Very much dairy farming on this flood plain - presumably the cows shift paddocks frequently as there is about 1 blade of grass per beast in this image!

This was the only canola paddock we saw on this leg.  I suspect there will be a lot more on the leg into Canberra at the end of this trip.

Images of cooling towers.  I think this is Yallourn.

Next is near Moe: it was tricky to get any sort of image as trees (and other traffic) got in the way.

Once out of the La Trobe valley I took over driving for the last 100 km.  I have wondered about a place en route called Koo Wee Rup: well may Wikipedia say it means something to do with blackfish, but our trips through the area clearly show it means "place where it always pours with rain".  That cleared up after about 20 km.

Interestingly Polly took us off the tollway on to Batman Drive and thence up Exhibition St to Victoria St and Therry St.  This was much simpler than dodging around the QVM where the satnavs have previously taken us.  Frances thinks this might be because we gave the street number of the Ibis as our destination rather than just the street name.

The only addition to the Vic towns project was Bruthen.