More recent Travel

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 w...

We have been very alert to the road closures due to floods.  This included the Google Maps suggested route from just West of Beaufort to the Glenelg  Highway. We headed off on 17 October to Dunkeld in the Southern Grampians.  The first illuminated sign was not about floods, but congestion on the approach to the Westgate Bridge (which turned out, in the lanes we chose to be less congested than has previously been the case). We rumbled off to the West, seeing no signs of congestion or flooding.  Past Ballarat we saw our first (distant) windfarm. When we turned South, just after Beaufort a closer wind farm was seen. Much closer! This installation was accompanied by some other decorations along the verge.  I think it is permanent rather than the installer emulating the retail industry and urging Christmas spending shortly after the Queens Birthday! The decorations were an interesting mix of items including house parts (eg chimney cowlings) as well as mor e Christmas...

There were some grounds for thinking that this trip was going to need Noah and his Ark, rather than a GPS called Sheila and a Mazda CX5. We are heading for Dunkeld in Central Western Victoria which is basically the kick-off point for the Southern Grampians, following on from calling in at the Northern Grampians on our way to Adelaide . The media were getting a tad biblical in their commentary about the level of flooding likely in Central Victoria which led me to check the Roads Victoria site.  The first thing that struck me was the amount of road "works" around Melbourne. Needless to say many of these symbols indicate areas were a horny son of toil might lean against a backhoe and a few may be places where a back hoe is actually hoeing. Going a bit further West some flooding appeared on the image on 14 October.  Dunkeld is marked with a purple arrow and our approximate route with green arrows. Looking a little more widely (on Live Traffic NSW) shows the extent of flooding...