Melbourne-Tasmania-Flinders-Dandenongs

Tasmania to Melbourne to Flinders to the Dandenongs and back to Melbourne

Thursday 5^th March 163 km in hire car

A rather disturbed night followed, as I didn't like the idea of being shut into this large shed, and despite Adrian's efforts getting up twice, to try and stop door rattling every now and again. It's a huge rattle like someone trying to get in and various other noises during the night. At 7.00 in the morning, we were woken, I'd just got up and found my watch had stopped and wondered why it was light and someone was rattling the door to get in. We then had another tumultuous time as we still didn't know what was happening about the engine. We'd heard it was up north somewhere and needed to be transported down, which would take time and John hadn't got the money and all sorts of problems. John then arrived and lots of conversations ensued and things changing by the minute and we had moments of great depression, thinking it will be weeks before we'd be on the road. We seemed to end up with the idea that John was going to get a new engine, all new parts, and Russell is going to fit them and with luck, it should be ready for our return from Tasmania.
We got ourselves all organised and John in fact gave us a lift down to the station. We got the train in to Melbourne, got off at Spencer Street, and went across to the coach station and we got the to the coach to the airport, it was just gone 10 o'clock. It took us an hour to get to Melbourne airport from there. The next place that the driver stopped, I had time to nip to the loo and to get back, for which I was grateful. We arrived at the airport and after checking in - no problems at all, we then went in search of Cathay Pacific who had moved their offices to the airport from Melbourne centre, where we had been the past couple of days. They had just moved there and there was a bit of confusion but we eventually found the office in an upstairs corridor and we couldn't just straightforwardly change our tickets for going home, the lady needed to send off and find the price and all sorts, so we had at least set that in motion. We then came back, I had a cup of coffee from McDonald's, would you believe, but it only cost $1, so a cheap cup of coffee. I sat with that and some sandwiches which I'd made up this morning with some nice bread we'd bought last night on the way home from Melbourne and the last of the silverside beef that we had. It was like a late elevenses, early lunch.
We then went through to catch our plane, there were only nine people on this small aeroplane - 9 passengers, and one Steward, a nice chap looking after us. We had a very pleasant flight across to Tasmania, cloudy part of the while. The morning had in fact been cool and we had a shower of rain before we'd left Melbourne, but quite bright and quite variable. We arrived in Tasmania and it certainly was cooler, it felt like an out of season holiday in England. At the airport we went straight through to collect our car, a young girl called Belinda I believe, only second time she'd done this she'd said filling in the form, and we had a nice chat with her. This all went without a hitch, we collected our car and bags and off we set wondering where on earth we were. We'd come into Burnie Airport but we weren't in Burnie at all, we were in Wynyard. We quickly found the information office and were immediately accosted by the chap in there trying to be helpful. He was ex- Englishman from Shropshire and gave us lots of leaflets. We were quite befuddled by it all having suddenly come on this trip to Tasmania and knowing nothing about Tasmania at all, we had planned this for the end of our trip,
We set off westwards along the north coast stopping first at Fossil Bluff, a cliff with some fossils and lots of shells.

I had a little drive in our little Suzuki after this and on to Table Cape, looking back over spectacular scenery along the north coast. There was a plaque just as we pulled in to Alexander of the Alexander Technique, who was born very near to this point, which made the whole trip to Tasmania worth it just for that [Rosie was into the Alexander Technique for her bad back]. We then went on to Sisters beach which had a beautiful white sandy beach which reminded us of when we visited in New Zealand.

Rosie at Fossil Bluff, Tasmania

Rosie by plaque to FM Alexander of at Table Cape

It was beautiful scenery, quite blowy, very variable looking weather but warm in the car. It looks as though it could rain, it does every now and again but also sunny, very very pleasant. The man in the tourist information had said to us how laid back it was here - that's laid back compared to Australia! and he gave us a little silver spoon from Wynyard. Initial impressions of Tasmania is it is very pretty, very English. Lots and lots of pretty flowers. Beautiful, beautiful coastline, beautiful white beaches, turquoisey sea, red soil, and mostly lack of traffic. We'd taken a little windy road rather like an English road along with Devon coast and first impressions are very favourable, crops growing in the fields, funny sandy coloured sheep and very favourable so far. We drove along almost until Stanley, where we stopped by a lovely little beach near a place called Cowrie Point and looked across to where Stanley must be, and a huge rock called 'the nut' sticking out and then decided to return. We had to return the way we'd come along this very pretty coast road. We'd seen a lot of logging lorries coming loaded with wood, and Adrian was really enjoying driving a car with power.
We arrived at Ulverstone, our night stop for tonight. We drove around a bit before we asked a lady who knew where the road was and where the motel was. We had room number one and we settled ourselves in, in this comparative luxury, having stayed in a workshop garage the previous night. When we were ready, we went across to eat in the restaurant which was all of 20 feet or so opposite. We had an enjoyable meal, I had Trevella fish and chips. Adrian had a T bone steak and we had a half carafe of wine, and then went back to our room. We thought we would have a wonderful night's sleep after last night, but in fact didn't sleep that well, the wind was blowing quite a lot.

Friday 6^th March. 282 km in hire car

We got up to a fine morning, pleasantly warm. Adrian had been out last night and purchased some food so we were able to have breakfast in our room. I wrote one or two postcards and we got ourselves organised. We had managed to change our hotels and get a night in Hobart and we left just before 10 o'clock.
We stopped in Ulverstone and went in the bottle shop and got some wine, beer and soft drink and found a little newsagents where we got a decent map of Tasmania, some chewing gum, soft mints and I got an italic pen. We left there at 10.30. We then headed for Penguin on the scenic route which was along beside the sea, as a new road had been built which we'd come along yesterday and then there's us, the railway line and then the pretty coastline. We enjoyed again these glorious trees with red flowers which we'd seen in Tasmania but nowhere else. Penguin was a really pretty place with some very lovely gardens. It had the most delightful embankment to the railway, which was just like a herbaceous border of flowers different daisies, gazanias, cannas, hebes and then the railway line and then the beach.

Very beautiful. We took the road inland to Riana, noticing again the amount of crop farming and animals. We passed a place where there were 8 or 10 Old Morris Minors or Morris 1000's stashed around and we passed various old vehicles, caravans and what have you.
We turned off the Murchison highway to Waratah an old mining town set amongst the hills and the amazing thing about this town was there were 100 metre Waratah Falls - it said in the middle of the town where we didn't see them and Adrian didn't believe it. There was a little bit of a river and sure enough, this went down the other side of the road into a deep gorge.

Flowers beside the railway in Penguin

The weather was very variable, and the wind was blowing and it was pretty cold. It came on to rain while we were there so we sat in the car, made up cheese sandwiches, had a chocolate shortcake from the other day, half a nashy each and some lemon drink we'd bought, by which time the sun was shining again. We passed a dead kangaroo or wallaby on the road. Adrian spoke to a 70 year old lady of a couple from Queensland who were touring Tasmania for a week. She said that Queensland had been upper 30'sC all summer with 90% humidity, so she was sort of enjoying the cool here.
We stopped at Tullah to both have a little snooze. This town, like so many on the western side of Tasmania, found their wealth in the past century with various types of mining. Now it's just a tiny town with glorious rather Canadian looking scenery with lots of trees and mountains. We passed through Rosebery to Renison Bell where we stopped at the site of an old mining area. There was an historic walk here, we looked at it, but we didn't go on it and then we continued through Zeehan towards Strahan. We stopped at one point and took a long unsurfaced track down towards the west coast, which is practically inaccessible by road. When we finally got to the end it was just a huge sand dune in front of us, very high and very steep sided. We started climbing up this and I soon gave up but Adrian carried on to the top. There was also a long bit which looked like an old railway track. There were some blue flowers, the seeds of the flowers looking rather like bluebells but these were hanging.

Waratah Falls, Tasmania

We made our way back to the road and continued to Strahan. Just as we got to Strahan we took a road going to the West Coast, and this a road was supposed to go on and we did reach a parking place at the end. We climbed up on a boardwalk, - the dunes here were nesting grounds for shearwater and penguins - and we viewed this magnificent wild beach. We then walked down onto the beach briefly, it was extremely windy, but very magical and wild.

The road from Strahan back to Queenstown wiggled the whole way. Queenstown looked exceedingly barren and mountainous and mining had gone on around here. We found the Silver Hills Hotel and the chap at reception was new and didn't know anything. We located our room on the first floor which meant we could look out onto the mountains, and settled down with a cup of tea and later went down for a meal in the restaurant. Adrian had prawn cocktail and roast beef, and I had some king prawns and avocado and warm chicken and cashew salad and a beer each and a brandy snap afterwards. We returned to our room.

Blue seed heads near Strachan

Adrian on the Wild West coast near Strachan, Tasmania

Saturday, 7^th March 223 km in hire car

We awoke to see the sun just about to rise above the mountains opposite to give a clear blue sky. It felt warm in our room but was quite chilly outside. We had a cup of tea and then our breakfast in our room and left at 9.15.
We started our day by going up on the chairlift which was next to the hotel. We were the first customers of the day and had to wait for the chap to go up in the chairlift before us to let us off at the top. He was someone who liked to chat and told us a lot of interesting things about this area and its mining days. Apparently the volcanic rock of this West Coast of Tasmania contains all sorts of different minerals and mines would be for one particular one, but then they would find all sorts of others. This area was particularly copper and he said about the barren hills which are being reforested around about and there are a lot of trees on some the hills but he said this was only in recent years that these had grown. The sulphur in the atmosphere had made the soil very acid from the smelting and it was taking a long time for the sulphur to be leached out of the soil so that trees grew in it. The greenies came at one point and planted 1000s of trees which all died as the soil isn't yet ready for it. But hopefully in time it will be. The contrast between the barren hills and the hills with the trees was very great. He told us many many facts about the surrounding area and I think he liked to have the customers to talk to. They are hoping to get a little railway, like the Ffestiniog one, going in this valley for the year 2000. It was pretty chilly up the top, but a bright day.

We then came back into the town and found a little ‘do it all’ type, do everything supermarket, and bought a few things for lunch. We posted some postcards at the post office which wasn't open today, so I couldn't get the stamps I wanted. We then had coffee and bun in a coffee shop, if you can call it that, with a very silent man who served us, and then went in search of petrol. We finally left at 11.30 and out on a trek up through the 99 bends through the barren hills.
We stopped at the Nelson River and walked through the rainforest track for about half a mile to the spectacular Nelson Falls just peeping through the trees, with a clear blue sky, but it was still chilly. The air was very cold walking through because obviously we were out of the sun. the information boards said to think of one step being half a million years in time - quite mind boggling to think of, but it was a very unexpected delight walking through here.

Adrian following the 'guide' up on the chair lift, Queenstown

Adrian having the history explained, Queenstown

We returned to the bottom and to the car and by now it had gone 10 o'clock. We dove into the town of Queenstown and stopped first by the little engine that they hope will be running soon and lots of historical bits around to look at. We then drove on through the town to the bit where they're hoping to restore the railway.

Silver Hills, Queenstown, Tasmania

1899 Dubs 3730 Abt-rack no. 3 0-4-2RT steam lococmotine on Mount Lyell Abt-track Mineral Railway, Queenstown,

We stopped at Donaghys Hill and made our rolls and had lunch first. The sunshine was warm with a clear blue sky and we then walked up to Donaghys Hill, the wilderness look out that it said the walk was 40 minutes return. We were actually gone an hour, but that's because we really enjoyed the walk and when we got to the end of this lovely walk through the treelined place, we just looked around to 360 degrees of mountains and trees and blue sky. Not a thing you could capture on film but a thing to stay in one's heart and memory. It was beautifully warm, just a wonderful feeling of having been there.

We stopped soon after and went on another trail to the Franklin River and the Surprise River through tall forests in pleasant sunshine.
We left there at 3 o'clock. We continued now on our way to Deloraine through the central wilderness part of Tasmania and some areas are forested and others not at all forested [This was rather back on ourselves, but it was due to all the hotels being full in the south]. There were wonderful areas of lakes, vividly reflecting the beautiful clear blue skies of today. Much of the road was unsurfaced and there was a strange basalt formation of rocks and cliffs and a sort of landslides of rocks and as we went over a small pass. We could then see the eastern side of the island which appeared to be an arable plain, which we will no doubt experience more tomorrow as we drive through it. We arrived at Doleraine and were shown where our room was It had a lovely view out past some hydrangeas by the window, to the hills beyond and the clear blue sky. We had a meal in the restaurant, me Camembert in filo pastry and Adrian a steak.

[ When we were there I could never see how this railway could have run again, because of it's remoteness, and lack of people/ volunteers . However the following was taken from the ralway's website :-
Following the allocation of Federal Government funding, the Mt Lyell railway from Strahan to Queenstown was totally rebuilt as a major tourist initiative for the Tasmanian West Coast. The bridges were rebuilt, rails relaid and new Abt-rack sections fabricated and installed. The railway was officially reopened over the entire route as the West Coast Wilderness Railway in April 2003.]

Adrian & Rosie in the rainforest and the Nelson Falls

Views from Donaghys Wilderness Lookout, Tasmania

Sunday 8^th March 391 km in hire car

A beautiful morning, we were up quite early and left about 8.50.

We stopped in Deloraine at a baker's and bought some bread and rolls and buns and a pie and then headed off. After a short time, at Westbury, we came to Pearn's Steam Museum, which of course we couldn't pass by and in two huge sheds, were housed dozens and dozens of old steam engines of various descriptions, plus other memorabilia. It was owned by three brothers, one of them was there and his wife and he had a miniature steam engine running around on a track which he was stoking up. We had a ride on it for $3 each - just over £1 , all inclusive and and there was a little organ that he'd made, which he showed us and a miniature threshing machine, he was certainly a lovely character. If it wasn't what we intended doing this morning, it was very enjoyable.

We diverted off the road to a little town called Ross which, was a very old town, and had a nice stone bridge across the river, built by British convicts. It was obviously a little touristy place as it had tea shops and old buildings. We had a walk around and there were English elm trees lining the main road. We bought a cup of tea and coffee from a takeaway for $1 each, to sit in the sunshine on a seat with the buttered buns that we bought this morning. The sun was by now warm and I changed into my shorts. We turned off the highway to drive through Oatlands, a town containing many sandstone buildings. We arrived in Hobart about lunchtime and continued on through to a place called Sandy Bay, where we stopped for lunch on the edge of a park where some sort of picnic with children and balloons was happening.

We were beside the water on very nice inlet although it looked very dry in the hills beyond. As we left we heard the start of the Grand Prix from Albert Park in Melbourne.
In a place called Margate, we came across an old steam locomotive and outside the train carriages was a secondhand stall selling a whole load of rubbish really.

Us in our Ancora T shirts (from Linda at Palm Beach) near Hobart

Garden view from our hotel window in Deloraine

Foden Steam Tractor at Pearn's, Westbury, Tasmania

Old Steam Tractors at Pearn's, Westbury, Tasmania

Adrian playing trains at Pearn's, Westbury

Making mini bales at Pearn's, Westbury, Tasmania, Australia.

West Coast Wilderness Railway today with its rack & pinion (Abt) track (trip Advisor 2024) - how much work did they do to get that going?

We continued south as far as we could, which was at a place called Gordon and then went along the most southerly part of this long peninsular. There was land and sea all around and it was so confusing that we couldn't see which bit was what and which was islands or which was mainland. There was evidence of great forest fires here. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints in this spectacular peninsular, looking absolutely glorious today with clear blue sky and the sun getting lower in the sky. At one point we talked to two couples from Perth in Australian dormobile vans, they were originally from England.

The train at Margate - formerly ran on the Hobart to Launceston line (not in those colours) (Australia247- 2024)

We'd gone through a fruit growing area, but we now came back to very much forested land and quite hilly and quite high, all very attractive. We'd found an easy listening radio station which added to our enjoyment of this very pleasant day. We drove up Mount Wellington for quite a distance, it was a winding road and by now Adrian had been driving all day. We did stop and look out over some of this wonderful area but a lot was showing the signs of having been burnt by a forest fire.
We descended from the mountain and soon found our way through Hobart and on to Glenorchy, almost a suburb now, a bit north of Hobart. We found our motel for the night and booked in. It was now 6.45 and we found that dinner was only served until 7.30 on a Sunday. We quickly organised ourselves to go down for dinner. We had a nice meal, we were given a couple of chicken drumsticks in a sauce as a starter. Then I had Thai chicken which was very much a curry, and Adrian had Trevella fish like I'd had the other day but served differently, with salad. We had a bottle of Chardonnay which was only $10 and also had a glass of a Tasmanian wine which was quite lovely. We were amused by the people serving us, the young chap was a James Cook with a bit of Scott Lipscombe and the woman was all smiles and make sure that the customers were served your actual best. Pleasant music was being played and we did enjoy this [what Rosie didn't say was they were straight out of Faulty Towers, Basil & Sybil and they were all smiles and pleasantries in the restaurant, but we were by the door and every time they went out we could hear them arguing. It was also ironic that we were in Glenorchy and the hotel that Faulty Towers was based on was the Gleneagles hotel in Torquay ]. We returned to our room and I found that the very end of the series of Tom Jones was being shown which we'd seen in England before we left - Tom Jones by Henry Fielding - and while I trimmed Adrian's hair we watched the very last bit of this which was the thing we'd enjoy at home.

Views south of Hobart

Monday 9^th March 241 km in hire car

We awoke to a clear sunny morning after a good nights sleep, Adrian tried to change our hotels so we could have another night here to discover a bit more of this southern part of Tasmania, but we weren't able to do that. We turned on television on to Discovery Channel and found a programme about the platypus which was very interesting to watch as we got back from breakfast and got ready to leave.
By 9.30 we were crossing the superb Tasman Bridge towards Sorell and the water looked very calm and reflecting in the early morning sun. We crossed the two causeways to Sorell, it looked very beautiful and peaceful and we watched fish jumping. We stopped at Buckland at a dear little church and looked around the churchyard, very historic, very old for Australia. It had stained glass windows in the church. We discovered that the coffee which I had foolishly thought might have stayed in the polystyrene mugs had leaked out into the bag and over the food.
At Orford, we went for a walk along beside the river. It was a track built by convicts in the past and we walked for almost an hour -very peaceful. It was warm and sunny. We saw several butterflies but the most notable thing about the walk were hundreds and hundreds of little lizards that kept crossing our path, some of them were tailless lizards. We returned to the car, it was gone 12 o'clock and we drove a short distance and stopped by a beach [Triabunna]. There was the most exquisite view of white beach, a long sandspit coming up in front, and land almost enclosing from both directions. Then there was a very high island just out to sea and more of the coast up towards the north. It was turquoise sea, absolute clear blue sky, white white sand, warm and sunny with a slight cool breeze. We had our lunch there and we saw seagulls again with the dominant one making a right row, also herons and oystercatchers.
We stopped a bit further on at a sign which said Hermitage Rd and took a photograph.

and then we stopped again beside a beach [probably Kelvedon Beach], with a view almost too beautiful to describe. The deep green of the trees, the white of the beach, deep turquoise sea, the white waves and the misty, deep blue Islands in the distance of Schouten Island, Freycinet National Park, and then the pure blue sky beyond. We climbed down to the beach and just enjoyed this wonderful view. We continued through Swansea and then left the sea and drove inland for some kilometres and reached the sea again at Bicheno, which was going to be one of our overnight stops originally. We went down to a blow hole where water was splashing up through the rocks, very attractive and fun.

Adrian on the beautiful Triabunna Beach

Adrian by another Hermitage Road sign

We went up the coast to Scamander where we were to stay for the night and this hotel had the most fantastic location right on the beach. A river came out in front of the hotel and made lots of lagoons as it made its way to the sea, and then the rough sea was a couple of 100 yards across this beach and then just hills in both directions - north and south and still brilliant blue sky. We located our room, which had a little balcony that looked out on this fantastic view.

The water was not splashing over the rocks, it was coming up out of a blowhole, near Bicheno

There was also a swimming pool in front of the hotel and although the water wasn't heated and was rather chilly, I went and did a few lengths in that. I then went into the spa pool, like a jacuzzi, which was lovely and warm and Adrian joined me which was a bit of a cheat as he hadn't had a swim. He had no swimming costume either because he'd just come across with me and so he just took his clothes off and went in there.
We then went upstairs to our room, which had a low flat bath, so it was nice to have a bath - we'll be washed away soon. We then had a cup of tea and walked out across the sand to the beach. It was still and very pleasant. We came back and decided to do some washing, which is free, and located the machines and gathered together a bit of washing and put it in. We then we went upstairs for a glass of beer, then Adrian and I had a glass of wine - we'd bought a box of wine on the first day and hadn't drunk that much of it - can't waste it. Fantastic view.
We went down to our meal. I had seafood and Adrian had soup followed by trout and a bottle of wine. We seemed to be encircled by a coach party although there were others nearby. We talked to four people on the adjacent table, who had come up and were actually going to a funeral tomorrow. One of the ladies, reminded of Pat Lunn, and didn't think much of the coach party - they wanted coffee but the coffee was for the coach party only. She was from Adelaide originally. During the time an oldish lady from the coach party was playing the piano, and she made me think of Maude Robinson, and then other people went up and played different tunes, but it never really got going. After a while we walked on down to the sea again in the evening light and then came back our room.

Rosie on the balcony after a swim at Scamander, Tasmania

Tuesday 10^th March 201 km in hire car

We awoke early to the sun just rising on this exquisite view over the sea. We got organised fairly quickly and ironed the couple of items that needed it from yesterdays washing. We had a quick walk down across the beach and left just after 9 o'clock.

We stopped just up the coast at Beaumaris and walked through the coastal reserve to the beautiful wild beach and the rough waves of the sea. It was nearly 9.30 and very warm. We stopped at St. Helens on a large harbour of inland water and went into a 'Festival' supermarket and bought a few things for lunch, not very inspiring, and then continued inland.
We took a road off to Gould's Country, supposed to be a township of old wooden houses - three kilometres. The houses seemed to be scattered over a vast area, so we didn't get a feeling of a township at all, just one or two houses and a church. The road had become unsurfaced and we thought carried on through to rejoin the highway in a few miles. We went a long distance along this unsurfaced road through splendid country of wonderful trees and greenery and just like going through someone's country estate. We came to a sort of junction and the way we thought we wanted to go, said no through road and as our map doesn't show any places much off the main road, we had no way of knowing exactly where we were, and reluctantly we had to turn around and retrace our steps to Gould's Country. The scenery was just splendid with the sun shining and apart from the rough surface, it wasn't too much of a hardship. While near here we saw two large parrot sized birds with mauvie blue bodies and the yellow underwings. Back on the main road we stopped just outside Pyengana at a roadhouse, a place that did petrol and apparently meals and arts and crafts and all sorts of things and a shop. We had a tea and coffee but it didn't seem to have any cakes which seemed a little incongruous, and they seemed a strangely dour couple. We sat outside with our tea and coffee, the wind had got up and the chap said he'd lost all his sun umbrellas, due to the wind. The wind gets up unexpectedly and strongly. We found the place mildly amusing, but enjoyed our drink and the view and then continued on our way.
We went over the Weldborough Pass and at this point the road came back in from the right and it was the road which would have gone through after Gould's Country. We'd come to a sign saying that the road was closed due to bridge not being there ('Bridge Out'), and the sign on this end said the same thing so we were in the right place, but we couldn't have got through because of this lack of a bridge. We stopped just afterwards at a rainforest, where there was a simple 15 minute walk through myrtle trees with information boards telling the story as if by Grandmother Myrtle.

A Flowering Gum at the hotel at Scamander

It was a very interesting history of the earth and how it was all joined at one time and how the myrtle trees survived all this. There are similar looking trees in America, South America and Africa, although the seeds don't spread by air or by water, so they dated from when the land was all joined together. It was very pleasant in amongst the huge ferns, and gigantic myrtle trees, still warm although in the shade, and we enjoyed the little walk and it was informative too.
We stopped in Derby pronounced Derby and went into a museum here. Derby had a lot of lovely old timbered buildings, but the museum was just something else. It cost $4 each to go in and was a mass of information, buildings with all sorts of old photographs. It was a tin mining area, and there was lots to do with that and also just general things. A dam had broken in 1929 and there had been a flood, causing a loss of life and obviously devastated the place too. Outside, there were half a dozen or more old wooden buildings done up - houses of old, but done very nicely so, with stuff just left around everywhere. There was also a little example of a mine and a great deal of other things to see. We very much enjoyed our visit.

Adrian on the walk at the Weldborough Pass

We went into an adjacent craft shop, but a coach party had just arrived, so it was crowded out with people - we didn't stop that long. Just a bit further on by the river at Derby Field, we sat at some strange wooden seats with tables that had funny shaped bottoms and had our lunch. While having lunch we saw a delightful small bird. It had a red breast ( no it wasn't a robin) and light grey body and a very black head. It was about the size of robin and it was quite tunefully singing to its mate. We left just after 2 o'clock.
We continued to Launceston and located our hotel, not such a lovely view as yesterdays, but still looking out on to the Tamar Estuary. We were there quite early, by about 4 o'clock, so we had a cup of tea. Adrian phoned the dentist and got an appointment for first thing in the morning. He phoned Russell and found that things seemed to be going okay with the van. It was still warm. We walked down into Launceston and had a walk around some of the shops and walked back up through the city park and then looked out on what was actually a pleasant view with sun lowering on the water of the river.

Tin Mining museum at Derby

We went down to supper - the restaurant tonight was very quiet. We had a meal, I had fish and Adrian had steak. The chips were rather insipid and the meal wasn't the best, so we'd decided to go out for a meal somewhere, tomorrow evening. We went back up to our room and played a game of Yahtzee.

Flowers near our hotel, Launceston

Wednesday 11^th March 174 km in hire car

We awoke to a fine morning with clear blue sky. Adrian had got a dental appointment for 9.00, so after breakfast, we both set off down the road, him to the dentist where he successfully had his tooth filled, and me to go into Launceston where I photocopied a letter we'd written to Nicholas Thomas last night and sent that off to Canberra University. I took in a film and walked back up through the park and back up to the hotel, ready for us to set off for the day. We're going back to this hotel tonight. We headed off soon after 10 o'clock and went down into Launceston where I collected the photographs which were good and then we headed off out and up the eastern side of the Tamar River, the weather was very hot.
Our first stop was Hillwood Strawberry Farm, where we had strawberries with cream and ice cream, and blueberries and looked through our photos. It was very hot and sunny by now. There was a steam locomotive here, which Adrian loved, and climbed up into, and I photographed him in all his glory, ‘driving’ the steam engine.

We continued to Georgetown and stopped at the information centre, then drove on into the town, parked beside the water and went for our little walking tour of Georgetown where we saw a monument to the early settlers. This was supposed to be Australia's oldest town but it didn't have much evidence of the old town.
We drove a bit further along the road to the end at the headland, where the Tamar River comes out. We watched the Seacat leave. There is a little beach here where the little penguins are supposed to come like the ones that we went to on Philip Island. We had our lunch sitting here and walked on the beach, which was actually a very coarse sand and hurt my feet. The sky was a beautiful blue, blue sea, green grass and green trees - all very pretty and tranquil. We drove up to the lighthouse and viewed along the north coast to the east and could see lots of sandy beaches. We drove down to one of these, a long sandy beach speckled with pebbles and we had a paddle in the sea -the water was very cold but the sun was very hot. We sat on the sand for a short time. We drove up the hill to St. George's lookout above Georgetown, which gave a good view out over the Tamar Estuary, where we spoke for a long time to a couple from near Adelaide, with their small motor home.
We crossed the Tamar River on a fine bridge and stopped soon afterwards opposite Marion's Vinyard and walked down a long jetty out into the river, but we were unable to view the bridge from here. Soon after, we walked down beside a little creek for about a quarter of a mile, to the ruins of an old flour mill. Very pleasant in this late afternoon temperature.

Adrian 'driving' his steam locomotive at Hillwood Strawberry Farm

We followed the Tamar River down as far as we could, and then the road into Launceston and then found the way to walk up the Cataract Gorge which adjoins Launceston. This was a very deep gorge of the big River Esk. We followed it for about half an hour and then to our surprise, found quite a few people about and obviously there was access from the other end of it. There was a chairlift and a suspension bridge and we came back by crossing the river and coming back on what was called the zigzag trail, which was just that. It zigzaged up to the top of a mountain side and back down again - we went tremendously high above the river and arrived back at 6.30.

Rosie by the ruins of an old flour mill

We drove back to the hotel, it was still very warm, with clear blue sky.
We walked down into Launceston looking for somewhere to eat. We had difficulty in finding anywhere and eventually ended up in a Chinese restaurant, the only place that we could find open and had a pleasant meal. I had chicken with nuts, with pork and rice. Adrian had prawns and mushrooms and we had some wine. After this we walked back up arriving back after 10 o'clock.

Rosie at the end of our walk looking across to the Gorge, Launceston

Thursday 12^th March 140 km in hire car

Another beautiful day and we woke up later by the radio coming on and music playing. We got ourselves organised to leave, for our flight back this afternoon and left at 9.40. We had a bit of trouble getting out of Launceston because Patterson Road didn't lead to Patterson Bridge as we had imagined it might. But we soon found our way north on the Tamar Highway, and then turned off to Notley Gorge mainly because we'd had a glass of Notley Hill wine earlier in the week and said, “Oh, let's go back that way”.
In fact, this gorge was called Notley Fern Gorge, and there was an hour long walk down to the gorge and back up. The rain forest there was the most primeval feeling rainforest we'd been in, huge fern trees and dark and apart from those other dank and huge trees. We had bird song, and we had for company some small kangaroos or wallabies, that we heard rather than saw them because they leapt away when they knew we were approaching.

We found it quite moving being in this ancient forest, and in fact, when we returned to the car, which did take about an hour, we returned down the steep slope, to take some video as we felt it was worth taking, so in fact we were an hour and a half in total and it was 12 o'clock when we left.
We made our way to Devonport and managed to park in a side street - there were parking meters down all the other streets and walked into the shopping precinct which could have been any shopping precinct anywhere. We found quite a nice little bakery cafe where we had nice pastry and bun, tea and coffee sitting outside. We then took a road which headed down to the bluff which had nice views along the coast.
Adrian contacted Russell and discovered the bad news that the van wouldn't be ready today but we hope it will be ready tomorrow - there was a part that they were having trouble with. Feeling very depressed about this, we rang the Tanners and spoke to Laura who rang some friends in Melbourne but they hadn't got any room, they've got friends staying tonight. We then headed towards the airport.
We turned into Ulverston remembering that we stayed there the first night to pick up a Best Western leaflet of hotels in Melbourne, but we couldn't come up with any conclusion from that. We continued very depressed along the very beautiful north coast and got to the airport at Wynyard at about 3.50. We unpacked the car and got our bags properly loaded and went into the airport.

Rosie in Notley Fern Gorge

We were looking through the Lonely Planet for any reasonably priced accommodation in Melbourne but didn't come up with any answers.
We then boarded the flight at 5 o'clock, but it was not an enjoyable flight. The weather was becoming very very turbulent and the one hour flight, was in fact an hour and 20 minutes at least, bumping up and down and then we went round and round in circles at Melbourne. We had orange juice and a piece of cake and were just glad to be down in Melbourne even though when we got there we didn't know, what we were doing or where to go. We did inquire about Adrian's glasses which he lost on the way out, but no luck with that.
We collected our luggage and headed for a Skybus, but it appeared we had just missed one, so it was half an hour to the next one at 7.05. We were sill feeling very despondent when we realised the bus in fact had just pulled up to the terminus in front of us and had we gone at that point we could have caught it. We had a few spots of rain while waiting for the bus. On the journey into Melbourne we realised we had to do something about accommodation, and Adrian phoned the Best Western Hotel near the centre of Melbourne and booked us in for the night. The journey in was very quick, less than half an hour, much quicker than on the outward journey and at Spencer Street we got out and got onto the free city tram and went a couple of stops with that, but still had to walk a distance to the hotel. As we went to get off the bus I realised that I'd left my ‘back friend’ on there, but luckily remembered it in time.

It was 'goodbye' to our little Suzuki after a week

We had to wait at the hotel as the receptionist was on the phone and when she said that she'd got the room for us, did we want to have a look at it first, we said no, we just want to get there. We got upstairs and it was a rather strange setup. We came out to an upstairs courtyard like a street and the little rooms were off either side of it. But whereas I thought we might have had a nice view of Melbourne there was no view from the room at all. It did say that there was a spa pool at the hotel, and I located this. It was wide enough for one person to swim in and about as long as our dining room. A chap was just getting into it and said it was very cold and I felt it and I thought - no I'm going to have a swim, so I did enjoy what Adrian said was a very expensive swim. I went back our room and we had showers.

We then set off for the centre part of Melbourne or at first at least somewhere to eat. We came across a nice little restaurant, which was an Italian restaurant, on one side a football support meeting was going on. We ordered a pizza, mine was a small one, just my size, Adrian a medium sized one and with a couple of beers it was just the job. We were still feeling very despondent. We walked down into the main part of Melbourne, quite a long walk, but when we finally got to the Centre, it was nice walking around amongst quite a lot of people. We walked around for quite a while and back up again through the little Flagstaff Gardens, which were being watered. We got back to our hotel about 10.50 - we were feeling pretty weary.

Friday 13^th March

We didn't have that a good night as it was very hot and with the air conditioning on was very noisy. It was noisy anyway from other people's air conditioning. We surfaced and tried to organise what to take with us, and what to do as we are still uncertain of what's going to happen. We had a little bit of muesli left from our Tasmanian trip, which we had with some milk that was in the fridge there. There was a toaster ironically, but of course we were left with no bread, no butter, no marmalade, but we had tea and coffee.
We walked to the Victoria Market which was very large and walked around and bought a new battery for my watch and that was all. Afterwards we had tea and coffee and a bun. We turned on the phone and found two messages, one from Ali from a couple of days ago which some reason we’d missed and one from John who had arrived in England. We caught the tram out to the zoo, but before we went in we tried phoning Russell. He wasn't there but got him eventually on his mobile after lots of tries -he didn't know the situation. We tried him again several times and at 3 o'clock, when we were thinking of leaving the zoo, we did get a hold of him to find the very unhappy news for us, that they hadn’t got the part. It hadn't come through today and so the van wouldn't be ready and we'd have to make alternative arrangements for going to Adelaide. We'd tried to enjoy our time going around the zoo, but it was obviously full of apprehension about what the outcome would be. Not knowing what we were going to do was very frustrating. Melbourne zoo was very pleasant and we saw lots of animals in particular platypus, a wombat and a kookaburra that I photographed and we saw mere-cats - they didn't only have Australian animals there. As we were leaving we saw a badger.

We made it as pleasant a day as we could, but both of us were feeling very edgy. We had taken a bite to eat for lunch there.
So now at 3 o'clock we decided to head back in on the tram to find out about bus transport to Adelaide. This was difficult as the first place we tried wasn't there anymore. The second one had lots of people in there and we waited a while, but then gave up. We decided to go for the train. which travels overnight, leaves at 8.20 and gets there at 08.45 in the morning. We found out about this and then had three and a half hours till it went. The next thing to do was to get back to Clayton, to see what other things we needed. In particular we thought of walking boots and in fact, when I spoke to Rob on the phone, that's what he said to bring - so it was lucky we did go there. We had bought tickets, this morning that covered us on the train out there and back, but of course everything took a long time when you're in a hurry added to which Adrian had a sore groyne, so walking was difficult.
The van was difficult to find things in as it was up on the ramp, very dark inside and the front half all being worked upon, but we managed to sort out the things that we thought we need in addition to the things we'd already had for the past week. Dear Bill over the road had come to see if we'd wanted any help and hopefully at the end of this time in Adelaide, the van will be done and he will give us access to it, as Russell isn't going to be around next week. We then headed back towards the train realising that there wasn't that much time, We bought a pasty and a bun and a drink. We didn't stop to eat them, but headed for the train, a good half hour back into Melbourne.
We then decided the only thing to do. We had about three quarters of an hour to get back to the hotel and get the baggage, so we decided to get a taxi. The first chap didn't know what we're talking about when we asked but the second chap got us there and back very quickly. It was trying to spit with rain at this point. We had bought our ticket before this little episode so we arrived back at Melbourne station for the Adelaide train, the overland, with 20 minutes to spare. We had felt it was like 'Les Miserables' on my birthday of last year travelling up in London with many similarities. This one though I'm glad to say, we did make the train and settled ourselves in ready for overnight journey.

A wombat at Melbourne Zoo

Meerkats at Melbourne Zoo

Saturday 14^th March

The journey went quite well, I read a bit, Adrian had a beer - in fact he bought two and the man opened both so he had to drink one during the night. I had a little whiskey, dozed a bit and then dozed quite well during the night.
After we had woken up, we were told that the train had been delayed two hours, because of broken piece of track, so it was 10.30 when we arrived, and were met by Jan. We had to buy bus tickets for the return journey to Melbourne.
We went back to Bridgewater and met the rest of the family , Laura, Mark and Adam and later Rob and sat chatting on the balcony. I'd done the washing and got it dried and ironed. After lunch we went and had a lie down. Laura’s boyfriend Tim arrived and later we had supper and chatted some more. We went to bed at about 11.30.

Sunday 15^th March

We slept really well. Got up late, it was gone 9.00. We spent a pleasant day. It was coolish but warm in the sun later. We had breakfast which went on till lunchtime, and lunch which went on to teatime. In between times I got the hand washing done and got the other things organised for going up to the Flinders tomorrow. I phoned Ali and I picked some apples, tomatoes and other produce. Laura had a friend Lucy who came during the day, and later she went off with Tim. It was Tim's grandfather's 80th birthday. Adam cooked a stir fry. We just got generally organised. At Bridgewater.

Jan, Rosie, Adrian & Mark at the Tanners at Bridgewater

Rob, Jan, Laura, Adrian & Mark at the Tanners at Bridgewater

Adam cooking a stir-fry for supper

Monday 16^th March

A chilly morning, that turned hot later. This was the day that we were driving up to the Flinders with Jan & Rob, so we got up quite early, got ourselves organised, and left soon after 9.00. We stopped at Clare and had coffee. We stopped later at Oloroo, and had lunch in a roadhouse and then once more at Hawker for petrol and arrived at the site just before the sun was going down. The site is called Iga Warta - 'The home of the native orange'. We got the tents pitched and then we sat around by a big log fire under the stars and the almost full moon and then had supper and retired to our little tent.

Tuesday 17^th March

The night was not cold and a hot day followed with clear blue skies. After breakfast by the log fire, we went out in the landrover with Jan & Rob and the others. Cliff (part owner of camp site) and his wife Genevieve took us to some old aboriginal sites where they showed us various artifacts and paintings. It was a lovely morning.
We went back for lunch, and in the afternoon we went out with Rob & Jan and we first found a waterhole where there was a only little bit of water and then we drove off into the Gammon Ranges and could see in the distance the dried up Lake Frome. We arrived back some time after 6 o'clock, rather hot and dusty and had a shower.

Wednesday 18^th March

We had a good night. It was a bit chilly when we woke up and had been windy in the night and was windy quite a bit in the morning but a clear blue sky and a beautiful day. We had breakfast, we made toast on the embers of last nights fire and then Cliff came with Genevieve and we went across to Terry's house where we saw a wonderful display of photographs, mounted with captions, all about their Aboriginal tribe.
We then went off following them and they took us to a gorge. We looked first at some little implements that we picked up which looked just like stones but they were past implements of this Aboriginal tribe.

We had our meals sitting by the campfire, then Terry (the other owner) and Cliff both came and talked about Aborigines, and Terry sang some songs about their story. I felt rather sleepy. The only other people in the Iga Warta campsite were a couple, who were a Minister and his wife, Murray & Tracy, who were in a tent camper, and their parish was South Australia. We all chatted till gone 11 o'clock.

Jan, Rob and Adrian at the dried up waterhole

Murray, Cliff & son, Terry, Ron (Coulthard) by the campfire at Iga Warta

On our way back, we stopped by a large gum tree and sat under that for a while and then went back to the tents. We'd seen a trail of about 100 caterpillars end to end, all in one long line.

We followed a long way down this rocky gorge to a cave at the side, which had some Aboriginal drawings or paintings made in four colours white (chalk), black (charcoal), yellow ochre and red ochre. Cliff told us quite a bit about these and we then made our way back into the vehicles.

We sat around at lunchtime and Cliff brought some more Aboriginal artifacts, a didgeridoo, a boomerang, and something he'd carved and we then set off with Rob & Jan by car to Copley - a three quarters of an hour trip - where we got petrol and bought one or two things, Adrian phoned and found the van still isn't ready. We looked at some information boards around Copley and then drove on to Leigh Creek, to see where 'brown' coal is mined. We drove back to Iga Warta and arrived at 6.30 to have showers and hairwash.
While we were eating supper around the fire, Ron [uncle of Terry and Cliff] arrived back full of chat. Later Terry and his wife and Cliff came and we talked a bit and about the stars which we're very bright [it was at this point we asked Ron, who we thought was a wise old Aborigine, what he could tell us about the stars - meaning Aboriginal stories - and he said "well I sees them up there"!]. We saw a shooting star and we chatted around the fire till about 10.30.

Wandering around with Cliff & Geneivieve looking for Aboriginal artefacts

Aboriginal mortar & pestle

Cliff talking about the cave paintings

Some of the cave paintings

Yellow Ochre, Red Ochre and White clay - all used fro Aboriginal drawings

A moments rest in the shade

Under the 'story' tree

Siting around the campfire at Iga Warta

Thursday 19^th March

Up early to another fine, hot day with breakfast round the fire again. Then we set off with Jan & Rob and drove to the Gammon Ranges and Arkoroola, where we stopped and looked around the information centre and other bits of this very small village, which had been set up in the middle of the wilderness.

We arrived back at Iga Warta at about 5.00, had a beer and a piece of cake. It was still hot. After supper Terry came over again, with his guitar, and he brought a little book of the story that he'd written in his language - it was a translation - about a little Red Robin. We sang the song together and bought a copy of his book. He brought a damper, which he cooked for us in the fire. We ate it with cream and jam, which was a special Aboriginal jam made with local fruit with the funny name of Quandong. We saw another shooting star. We went to bed about 11.30

Our tent at the Iga Warta campsite

A red-backed spider that 'lived' in the shower!

We drove on several kilometeres further, on some very rough road, to Nooldoonooldoona Waterhole where we sat and had our lunch. We saw dragon lizards, kangaroos and on the way emus.

Jan, Rob & Adrian looking at an information board near Arkoroola

Red Mistletoe near Arkoroola, Gammon Ranges

Lunch stop at the Nooldoonooldoona Waterhole

Dragon Lizard at the Nooldoonooldoona Waterhole

Another campfire for our last night at at Iga Warta

Friday 20^th March.

Another lovely day, up early to see the sun just rising. We got ourselves packed up, had breakfast, said goodbye to Terry and Cliff and left at 10 o'clock.
We drove to Copley, where we stopped for coffee and a bit of Quandong cake in the bakery. Then on to Hawker where we filled with petrol and then on to Quorn where we had lunch in a place similar to the quandong bakery of this morning. We had a meat pie and lemonade. We were looking for a bank and Adrian did get some money out - we'd had to pay quite a bit to Terry for fees and we were right out of money.
We then found a phone box and phoned Melbourne and spoke to someone who said the van will be ready for us to collect - great jubilation although we weren't really able to take it in.
It was a long journey on through Laura, the landscape becoming greener and greener the further down we went. We'd seen several whirly tornadoes on our journey on the way back. We arrived back in Bridgewater, Adelaide about 7.00 and were greeted by Tim, Mark and the dog, Laura and Adam returned just afterwards. We had pizza, which the kids had made and we unloaded the stuff into a room which had bunk beds in. We felt pretty tired. We had a letter from Emma and one from Margaret Massialas [family friend].

Laura & Jan Tanner, Adrian and Adam on their Balcony, Bridgewater

Saturday 21^st March

We'd had a bad night, plagued by mosquitoes and I particularly had slept very little. We awoke to very very hot day, mostly spent chatting, sitting around, washing, ironing. packing up and showers.

Rob drove us down to Aldgate, where we looked around the craft shops and walked back to Bridgewater and then more chat. We had supper on the balcony, with 8 of us, then two friends came John and Marlene, who owned two old cars, a penny farthing bicycle and a tandem. They lived a few doors up the road. We chatted to them and then went to sleep in the lounge.

Sunday 22^nd March

Mother's Day in England. I had a card from Emma which was nice. We slept well, up early, had breakfast on the balcony and then Jan and Rob drove us to Crafers, to the bus stop to catch the 8.40 am coach to Melbourne.

This took all day, a rather monotonous journey of nearly 500 miles, much of the time following the railway. We stopped at Bordertown late morning for half an hour and had a sandwich, and soon after this we changed the time back half an hour when we went back into Victoria.

We stopped at about two o'clock at Horsham for a cup of tea and a bit of cake which was lucky as it was really too soon, but that was the last we had to eat, apart from a few nut bars There were no more stops only a couple of drop offs and pickups. We stopped at Ballarat where Adrian liked the signals at the station. Then we turned south and went via Geelong which looked an interesting town, and we arrived at Melbourne at about 7.30 at Spencer Street.

Adrian lugged the bags into the station, and we quickly got a train, but had to change at Flinders Street and then to Clayton and arrived by eight o'clock. I sat on a seat and waited while Adrian went to pick up the van.

He returned about 9.10 and we then had to find somewhere to get something to eat and found a little pizza place open and waited while a nice gentleman cooked us a mushroom pizza. We went back to outside Hourigans repair place, ate the pizza and got ourselves unloaded. We were both pretty tired.

Monday 23^rd March 134 Km

We slept pretty well but awoke early with lots of crashing and banging. We phoned Emma about 7.00 and we got ourselves a bit sorted out, had some cereal and left at 8.20. We had to do about 200 miles in the van and then return here for them to check all the nuts and bolts on the engine and put in antifreeze, so we had decided to have a trip up into the Dandenong mountains.
We had some difficulty in getting out of Melbourne towards the Dandenongs. Eventually we stopped at Endeavour Hills shopping centre and bought up Safeway and we each got a nice bun which we had with our tea and coffee when we'd finished our shopping.
We then proceeded via Belgrave to the William Ricketts sanctuary. This was in an area of huge trees, the whole area there, the Dandenongs, is very attractive very green very hilly, very lush. This particular sanctuary contained statues, which William Ricketts had sculpted in clay and merged into rocks in his garden area amongst the trees. The sculptures were of Aboriginal people with very cherub faces and are very beautiful and inspirational. There were words and sayings near to go with them. We bought a book about the man and the place, so we could have some of his sayings written down. It was a very beautiful place, very serene, but it was unfortunately marred by the presence of mosquitoes and by the fact that the road running nearby had traffic on it quite a lot of the time, so didn't get the feeling of peace that we should have done.

Having said that, the place was very fitting for us to visit at this moment having just come back from an Aboriginal site and this was a white man who, 50 years or so ago, had seen that the way the aboriginals had been treated wasn't right and he did his bit to bridge that gap.
From there we moved on a bit and stopped by a lookout over the Silvan reservoir which provides water for Melbourne and this was looking down over a huge area of future forest. It had become cloudy and actually rained a bit - something we hadn't seen for a very long time and since we'd been on our travels in Australia really. We'd very soon got back into the way of travelling with a van and were enjoying it enormously. We stopped at this lookout for lunch and had some lovely rolls bought at Safeway this morning and other goodies which we had got, silverside and salads things. Two ladies asked if we would take photograph of them, one was English, visiting an Australian friend. We talked to her for quite a while. We gave the Australian one the travel bug again hearing about our adventures. We moved on along roads mostly unsurfaced through deep forest and came to the dam of the Silvan reservoir. They’d made it into parkland and opposite was a place for a picnic. Lots of different trees. We went in there for a short time but it actually was raining.
Soon afterwards, we came across some flowers at the side of the road for $1 and I bought a bunch of the pink lilies that we've been seeing. I didn't really have anywhere to put them. A bit further on again we stopped for Adrian's snooze and by now it was raining hard. This area was again heavily forested, particularly a part called the Black Spur. Huge trees towering up to the sky, crowded together with a lot of the trees with very white bark shining up and also at ground level, tree ferns, so that the whole thing looks very densely forested, majestic and quite spooky.

The William Ricketts Sanctuary

We saw the falls but didn't hang around or go for any of the other walks of which there were several in the area. We then had to return back on the road on which we had come.
We were looking for somewhere to stop and we went a long way to an attractive picnic site but it was for day visitors only. We returned to the road that we were on, but didn't really find anything suitable, so returned to the main road out of Marysville and not long after just before 5.30, we came to a large area off the road which seemed very suitable, so in the wet and in the dark - from the tall trees, we pulled off the road for our first stop for a while in the van. We sorted through the last 3 weeks of accumulated paperwork etc.

Steavenson Falls, Maryville (streetview 2018)

The Coaster (Platybus), near Black Spur

At Marysville, we turned off to drive several kilometres and then walk 350 metres to the Steavenson Falls. These were quite majestic and towered amongst high trees and in a deep deep ravine. A lot of tree ferns. It was also very wet, it was raining hard.

Adrian back in the Coaster again

Tuesday 24^th March 199 km

It was a cold night, we had the eiderdown on. It also rained during the night. We phoned Tom and left about 9.00 am. Just up the road we stopped at Nicholl Lookout and looked out over deeply forested mountains, no habitation in front of us at all. Just after that I took a picture of a 'Watch out for Lyre Birds' sign and later we did see Lyre Birds.

The coaster by a Lyre Bird sign near Marysville

A little bit further on we came to a thing called the Big Culvert. This was a bridge over a stream which the road went over - all of 100 years, it didn't seem very exciting to us, but the rainforest we went through for a few 100 yards, to walk to it was quite stupendous [it seems it was built in the 1870's to take the Melbourne to the Jordan Goldfields road over a deep ravine - now the Yarra track]. There was still a very chill nip in the air. It was dense forest - lots of trees and absolutely silent. There was an occasional bird and water was dripping down from the trees and the sun shining through so quite a wonderful impression to remember.

The rainforest walk to the Big Culvert

The actual big culvert (schikimikki website 2017)

We stopped at Warburton in a picnic area beside the road, with lots of tall trees on either side, obviously an area of recreation for the people of Melbourne, where we had coffee and biscuits. The sun was nice when it peeped through but in fact it felt pretty chilly and damp. We were by the Yarra River which just looked pretty wet and there were puddles on the ground and after a morning of no traffic at all, we were back into inhabited areas. We'd actually seen a lot of Lyrebirds up in the forest. We stopped in Yarra Junction and went to the post office and got some stamps and then also some rolls for lunch. We looked in Sharon's camping shop, it was raining.
At Emerald we came to the Puffing Billy Railway and on going across to the station we saw that a train left in about a quarter of an hour. We hurriedly had to decipher the timetable, went back and made up some rolls and got on this little steam train, intending to go to the end of the track at Belgrave, but in fact what we hadn't expected was it to be open trucks. The first class only had glass in the windows and the day which we had thought might have come out sunny as it was meant to be warm, was very cold and raining and within a few minutes we were both chilled through.

We alighted at Menzies Creek, the next station and transferred to a train which was sat on the other platform and was then delayed for quite a while. Very much a little tourist train full of tourists, with ‘docents’ in each carriage, explaining what we were seeing out from it. The scenery was quite superb. We were in this steep, forested hillside and looked out right across to Melbourne and the sea, but the fact that we were both so cold really detracted from it. We ate the rolls as the train just left Menzies Creek, so at 1.45 we were back at Emerald and driving back in the same direction from where we just been on the train - back towards Melbourne. At least we hadn’t had to pay for the train, as we had boarded half way, and swapped trains, so the conductor hadn’t caught up with us.
Adrian had rung Russell who said not to be back for at least an hour. We made our way, it seemed very quickly, back towards Melbourne and as we descended from the hills it became very hot. Somewhere near Dandenong, we came across the vast swimming pool complex that we'd seen on the way out yesterday. There was an indoor swimming pool, but the only pool for us to swim in was an olympic length pool and made up into lanes, not our favourite thing, but we had a jolly good swim. There was also a spa pool which we had a quick dip in, by which time there was blue sky.
We continued to Clayton, where Hourigans, the garage were going to check over and put some antifreeze protector in the engine, which couldn't be done until we'd driven it for a while. Adrian thought this would take about an hour. We stopped off at the photographers we’d used here before who were very good and I left my pictures at 4.10 and they said they'd be ready by 5.30.
We went to Hourigans and after sitting around a bit, I decided to go up to the shops and look around with arrangements to meet Adrian at 5.30 by the photographers, if not before. I called in at the cheese cake shop I'd been wanting to go in but the cheese cakes only came in whole or half one's - too big for us and in any case, I wasn't sure how much money I had. I continued to photographers at 5.00 and I went in to to ask how much they were going to be and they were ready, so I sat opposite and looked at them in the sunshine and was pleased with them. Then I wandered around, hoping to see Adrian and eventually having no sighting of him, decided to walk back to Hourigans where I found that Adrian was rather frustrated, the van was done but a big truck had reversed in behind and we couldn't get the vehicle out until they had finished fitting a new exhaust.

2-6-2T probably 12A steam locomative on the Puffing Billy line at Emerald

Eventually we did get out at 6.10 and I suggested we should stay the night there again, but Adrian decided he wanted to get out of Melbourne! So we drove into Melbourne and out the other side, which took about an hour. There was a beautiful fiery red sunset as we set off westward on the Western highway and we got as far as Melton and turned off and found a nice little park, where we stopped just before it got dark. We had a quick look outside and then came in. It was now 7.40 and we were well ready to stop. It had got chilly so we cooked the meal inside, opened a bottle of wine, and just looked forward to having got away from Melbourne. I wrote to Simon.