More recent Travel

 This covers a trip of 6 days away from Mallacoota staying one day in Melbourne, 2 days in Dunkeld and (most of) 3 days travelling.  We covered 1700 km in total with the big day being the drive home accounting for 800 km. Dunkeld is a modest sized locality.  The 2021 Census gives a resident population of 688 people of which 36% were aged 60 or over.  The 60-69 years age group had 17% of the population and 70-79 made up 14%: these were the two biggest 'decades'.  (As a comparison Mallacoota had 1183 people with 49% of people aged 60+ and equivalent decade values 22% and 19%.) Here are links to the individual posts: Drive to Melbourne In Melbourne Drive to Dunkeld Around Dunkeld and Hamilton Salt Creek and The Piccaninny  (note: this is a large post with lots of plant photos) Dunkel Heritage Walk Drive back to Mallacoota There was not a great deal of birding excitement,  suspect mainly because everywhere was so wet and water had covered all the margins of lakes and swamps so few

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

 After scaling the Piccaninny and having a rest we went to do the historic tour of Dunkeld.  To some extent this was like the historic tour of Montreal where the signs tell the tourists about what used to be there before the current modern building was erected.  In part this may reflect the 1944 fire which destroyed a third of the houses and businesses in the town.  Here is the map with numbers linking to my images which follow. The first image 1 is of a fossil in the sandstone blocks of one of the buildings before we got to the Royal Mail Hotel.  We were told these were visible in the wall around the Myers Garden but couldn't see any there. This 2 is the Royal Mail Hotel, which these days is mainly known for fine dining. Across the street is 3 the Sturgeon View Cafe.  I looks a nice place and does a good line in delivered meals: we had an excellent fish basket. The Post Office 4 was sold as a private house but the owner then took on the PO business a a licensee so it is still the

I thought I should offer a warning about the size of this post so that folk on limited download can choose whether to open it. Frances thought that we could manage to ascend The Piccaninny as it was rated as Easy/Moderate.  Mount Sturgeon was also a possibility but a fair bit longer and higher.  Before tackling that we did our morning heartstarter walk extending it a bit to come back along Salt Creek.  Fortunately Frances looked closely at the marked up map from the Visitor Centre and realised the track was on the South side of the Creek (after I had followed an illusory track towards the Northern side)! We came across a sign about an art work and initially couldn't spot it.  Then we did as well looked from the correct position.  Rocks on wire (marked 1 and 2) suspend a wire canoe over the creek.  The work is "Hide" by Trevor Flinn.  It was sponsored by Maria and Allan Myers , owners of the walled garden. "What is beyond along the path?"  Allison Eggleton, spons