Barb & John's Hols: Aussie Road Trip Day Sixteen Tuesday 30th July

Where's my breakfast?

As usual, we left early with a long day of driving ahead of us. Also as usual we planned to drive for a couple of hours and then find somewhere to have breakfast.

I was taking my turn on driving duty. Leaving Daylesford reminded me of driving to work through the fog and mist on the Maleny/Montville road and I felt well used to these conditions. We drove through the lovely old gold mining city of Bendigo. This truly is a lovely place and deserved to have more time to properly explore it. There has obviously been a LOT of money poured into this city during the boom times of the gold rush. Standing atop a small hill in town was a very beautiful cathedral with a steeple to rival Salisbury Cathedral in the UK (or so it seemed).

Continuing on the Midland Highway towards Shepparton in search of breakfast, we were disappointed not to find somewhere to park once we got there. Tortured by the aromas of coffee and food, we even backtracked along the main road desperately trying to find somewhere to pull in. It was not to be. With grumbling tummies, (and a few whinges from the back seat) we contined on towards Benalla, hoping that a smaller town might offer better parking opportunities. By the time we reached Benalla it was getting on for eleven o'clock. Phew! We found somewhere with both coffee and good wholesome food.

Ailsa and David at lunch in Benalla

Sated, Ailsa took over the driving and we finally managed to join the Hume Highway which speeded up the journey no end.

Hellbent as we were we on achieving our aim of Gundagai for a late lunch, no-one really noticed that the petrol gauge was dropping into the dangerously low level, and then it started beeping an alarm that the tank was near empty. We still had a few more kilometres to go but we managed to get off the highway and scurry to the first petrol station we could find. This has never happened to me before (John: Barb controlled her discomfort *really* well!). I rarely let the petrol gauge fall below half full let alone down to near empty - such a worry wart. Ailsa and David confessed that their cars have been know to travel up to fifty kilometres on "empty". They clearly have nerves of steel.

We lunched in Gundagai but didn't see the dog on the tucker box statue I'd seen many years ago on a school trip through the town - it's at a servo on the northern side of town. We wouldn't have made it there! The bakery where we ate lunch had old fashioned cream buns, just like the ones available at tuckshop in the bad old days of my youth when such unhealthy fare was served up to us happy kiddies (who surprisingly didn't suffer weight problems back then). (John: no photos, we were all too busy stuffing our faces).

Penelope's cat Hera in cammoflage

Cooking dinner

Hera finds our bed

Canberra finally came into view before sundown. We are staying with Ailsa's cousin Penelope and her husband Stephen's while here in Canberra, and have been spoiled with a wonderful home cooked meal and John has over-indulged sampling Stephen's extensive fine whisky collection. (John: hrrmmpphh).