Sunday, March 25th, 2012: From Melbourne to Ballarat
Bob: After breakfast at McDonalds, we repacked and checked out shortly before 10 o'clock. Rolling our luggage back over the Avis counter in the Qantas domestic terminal, we signed the necessary forms and picked up our rental car from Avis. It was a pretty light-blue Huyndai 4-door. Apparently we had been upgraded from the "micro" category we had originally rented, and while I was happy to get the extra space for our luggage, I was disappointed that we were given a car with an automatic transmission. Since it was a newer model than the "Gutless Getz" that we had rented up in Queensland during Wanderung 20, I had high hopes that it would be able to accelerate uphill, which the Gutless Getz had not been quite able to do. |
Monika: I woke up feeling like I had gotten a good night’s sleep. After breakfast at McDonalds it was time to go get our car. We had found the Avis counter in the terminal the night before, so were all set to go. We had booked the cheapest manual two door economy car and were told we had been upgraded. When we looked at the car, it was a nice 4 door Huyndai compact and it was even an automatic. It also was a very pretty light blue. There was only one hitch, no key and the car was locked. So while Bob went over to talk to a person, I went around the car looking for scratches. Having my camera I even documented them. Bob got back with the keys, filled out the previous damage report with my help, and off we went. |
Bob: The interstate highway from Melbourne to the airport essentially ends at the far boundary of the airport, so as we headed to Sunbury we found ourselves almost immediately on a typical 2-lane highway of rural Australia. On the outskirts of Sunbury we ran across an Aldi food store and stopped in for some supplies for breakfast and evening snacks (we usually eat out for the noontime meal). Serendipitously we found Aldi was selling sets of silverware for camping that week, so we picked up a set in addition to our groceries before continuing on our way. Our first tourist stop of the day was a World War I war memorial near the peak of Mount Macedon. The huge cross at the summit was dedicated to all the Australian veterans of all wars, and we both found it quite moving. It must have been very hard on the families of fallen Australian soldiers to not even have the emotional closure of being able to bury the bodies of their loved ones who died in foreign lands. Nearby we also found a small memorial to a post-WWII DC-3 crash that killed many passengers. |
Monika: Bob had layed out our route using a Back Roads of Australia book, where he had cobbled together several of their scenic loops to get us from Melbourne to Adelaide. Our first segment went from Melbourne west to Ballarat. We first headed off to Sunbury. The exit was easy to find and the freeway from Melbourne to the airport turned immediately into a very nice country highway with the requisite round-abouts. The nice thing about Australia is that even a tertiary road is wider and better marked than a primary road in Ireland and all roads have at least two lanes with a nice visible center stripe. So Bob got easily into the left hand driving. At Sunbury we found an Aldi store where we stocked up on some groceries and then headed on to Mount Macedon. This is a mountain and a city alongside the mountain in the Macedon mountain range. We did not stop in the city itself but drove on to the top, where there was another of Australia's many memorials to their fallen soldiers of WWI. This one was a huge cross at the top of the mountain from where you could almost see to the ocean. The area around was beautifully landscaped. On our way back to the car we took a few steps on the Macedon hiking trail and thought that one day, we'll come back to walk here some more. |
Bob: Deciding that the tea house by the memorial was a bit dear, we continued on to Woodend for lunch where we found a nice hole-in-the-wall eatery called Friar Tuck's. The information center there had a variety of informative booklets for the Ballarat area where we hoped to book a hotel, so we took those along. We also found a 3 kilometer path alongside 5 Mile Creek that started just down from the Visitor Center, so we hiked out and back on that just to stretch our legs a bit. |
Monika: Our next stop was in the little town of Woodend where we had a nice lunch in a little fish and chips place that luckily also served hamburgers, and I enjoyed my very first Aussie hamburger of the trip, which was as good as I remembered. After lunch we went to the local tourist information center where I found a booklet for Budget Hotels. We had stayed in them before and always had been very satisfied. Next to the information center was a little creek and a 3km walk one way alongside it. I knew I was in Australia when I saw my first Kookaburra and he stayed put long enough for a picture. There also was this big shaggy white thing up a little hill next to the gate of a house. I first thought it was a dog, but then noticed horns and got terribly confused. Probably a sheep, maybe a goat? |
Bob: Our final stop of the day was Trentham Waterfall, and since the long drought had at last broken in Australia, it even had water in it! We were surprised that the basic reason it had formed was an old lava flow from a nearby volcano that buried the soft alluvial deposits of an ancient river with a hard cap rock of basalt. But it was clear that the water was undercutting at the bottom of the sheer cliff face of the waterfall and that another collapse of the face of the waterfall would happen in the not-too-distant future. |
Monika: Our next stop was at the Trentham Falls. We walked a short distance down to the falls. They were quite different from anything I had seen. There was not all that much water, but the stones to either side were a bright yellow sandstone and on one side the constant spray had started to under carve the stone. Sooner or later that part would fall in. Quite fascinating. But this was enough sightseeing for the first day, it was time to go on to Ballarat. We drove through the little town of Daylesfort and it looked interesting enough to maybe go back. |
Bob: But we were getting tired after that, so we just hustled along without pause until we reached Ballarat where we found a room for a few nights. Using the Aldi groceries, we had ham and cheese sandwiches, cups of soup with Ramen noodles, and some cookies and chocolate-covered licorice bullets (an Australian specialty, apparently). All together that made a very satisfying evening meal. I wrote in the journal a bit after that, but finally just gave up and turned in for the night around 8 p.m. |
Monika: I had set the GPS to take us to one of the motels, the Eureka Lodge Motel, in the booklet but first we thought we should go to the tourist information in Ballarat. That was easier said than done. We found the place alright in downtown Ballarat, but could not find a parking place, so we decided to just forge ahead to the motel I had picked out. But when we got to the place where the GPS thought the motel should be it was not there. So we went back. Since Bob was getting tired, we decided to stop at a Quality Inn. But when they wanted $160 per night we decided to keep looking. While in the Quality Inn, I had found a map of Ballarat and figured out what the problem with finding the Eureka Lodge Motel. The road it was on had a north and a south branch. The GPS had guided us to the northern branch. I now knew how to get to the southern branch and there was the motel. It was a very nice little place, they had a room and the rate was only $85. Our room had a refrigerator and a water heater and even bowls for cereal in the morning. So we had a quick dinner, read a little bit longer and then headed to bed. |
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| Prolog | Map of Drive in Australia | Map of Transpacific Cruise | Epilog |
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