Another batch of pics cab be found at http://www.facebook.com/editphoto.php?aid=161484&success=1&failure=0#!/album.php?aid=161484&id=521859549

It really is a very nice part of the world here. Bateman’s Bay, on the Clyde River, is at the Northern end of a whole string of villages, woodland, fantastic beaches and blue water. I’ve had holidays on Greek Islands with beaches less nice that this one, and this is just one of many.

Trevor and Glenda took us to one such today, Pebbly Beach, to see the kangaroos that abound there. I have attached a pic of Glenda and Trevor with Mrs A. Oddly, given the Aussie penchant for naming places after their most obvious feature – for example the Great Sandy Desert, the Snowy Mountains – Pebbly Beach has no pebbles at all. Neither, on this occasion, did it have any kangaroos, though we did find some poo. We made a short detour to South Durras, where we did see a mother kangaroo, with a joey, and another in the pouch. The mother posed for some photos, (see pic) and then she and the joey remembered urgent business elsewhere and hopped off.

Trevor took me surfing today – see pic. We had to go down the coast a couple of bays to Broulee Beach to find a decent swell.

You have to lie on the board, then, at the crucial moment, spring into an athletic pose standing crouched on the board, then go. My days of springing athletically, even in optimal conditions, never mind on a moving board on top of a big wave, are behind me, I fear, so I opted for the beginner’s lying down pose. That worked quite well, for a few goes, so I gained confidence and adopted a rather stylish squatting/kneeling combo. That went well, too, until one ride when I had the nose a bit low and was pitched into the sea. So I have now not only surfed in the Pacific, I’ve drunk a good deal of it as well.

Later, Trevor showed me how it should be done – he’s been doing it for more than 50 years and can do the athletic springing thing with no trouble. We had to get back because we were going somewhere for lunch, but we will probably go again. I hope so - it really is a fantastic buzz.

Changing the subject completely, here’s one other thing I’ve discovered. The Australian States assert their individuality wherever possible: for example, all the eastern states – Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania - are in the same time zone (GMT+10) but they don’t all have daylight saving. So here in NSW we’re currently GMT +11, and between October and March you have to adjust your watch crossing to and from Queensland. Given that people must commute that journey daily, it really makes no sense at all.

We’re on our way to Canberra to meet Glenda and Trevor. To avoid going back to Melbourne we’re following a route given to us by the two old boys in Dunkeld (see earlier post). It takes us through some nice little towns and rolling green hills, reminiscent of Sussex. Except for the nice weather, of course.

It’s a long way from Ballarat to Canberra, too far to drive in one go, so we’re staying overnight at Albury, a medium-size town just over the border in NSW. My book fails to find anything to say about Albury, so I guess it’s of no particular historical interest. It looks a pleasant enough town: there is one long street – Dean St – which runs through the town and has all the shops, restaurants and bars. Saturday night so the young folk are out in force. It’s very hot, well over 30 degrees.

Left Albury early Sunday morning, for Canberra. Most of the route is via the Hume Freeway; Australian freeways have an upper speed limit of 110km/hr, which is almost universally observed. There are bossy signs every few kilometres telling you to slow down (“Slowing Down Won’t Kill You!”) or to have a lie down (“Powernap Now!”) I guess that given the distances and the lack of visual variety it wouldn’t be surprising if drivers tended to nod off. Then again, there are small pleasures - on the way we passed signs for colourfully named towns: Wagga Wagga, Tumbarumba, Rumpi Pumpi*, and such like.

We crossed the Murrumbidgee river and stopped for some tucker, as they say here, at Gundagai (pop: 2,400, elevation: 230m), a pleasant little place with more than a hint of the Old West about it. And so on to the nation’s capital.

When Australia needed a national capital, in the early 1900s, they couldn’t agree between the rival claims of established Melbourne and upstart Sydney, so they decided to purpose-build a capital city in neither place, and gave it its own territory (Australian Capital Territory, or ACT). The American architect Walter Burley Griffin was hired to design the city from scratch, and much of central Canberra is built around Lake Burley Griffin, and is walkable. All the big national buildings are here, Parliament House, the National Gallery, National Library, High Court, etc. It is not a typical big city though in that it lacks skyscrapers and heavy traffic, and has a quiet charm.

In the morning we’re going to take the rental car – we’ve covered 1600 km since picking it up in Melbourne - back to the car hire place downtown, put our luggage on the pavement, and wait for Glenda and Trevor to pick us up.

*I may have imagined the last one.

Ballarat, where we are now, was founded in 1851 when gold was found here. The biggest nugget in history, weighing about 70kg, was found here. For a while it was the richest town, per capita, in the world. You could get anything you wanted: ice for your drink was brought from Boston, Massachussetts.

The whole experience has been re-created at Sovereign Park, an open air, working museum, staffed by folks in period dress who will pose for photos, while professing never to have seen a camera before “prithee, what strange phenomenon is this?” The pic above gives the flavour.

A man, in period dress, showed us around ‘his house’. He hailed from Swindon, originally, and asked us if we would excuse him briefly as he had to go and shout abuse at some school kids. There is an exhibition where the same gold bar, weighing 3kg and worth $22,000, is endlessly melted down, poured, and re-set, for an audience.

The whole place has been carefully reconstructed – anyone who has seen the TV series Deadwood will get the picture – apart from the whorehouse, obviously.

Apart from the above, not much to report - Ballarat renowned for what it was not what it is now. In the morning, on to Albury, NSW.

Relatively short – couple of hours – drive from Melbourne to Torquay, the eastern end of the Great Ocean Road, along the south coast of Victoria. Torquay nice little place, seems like retirement spot, judging by the crowds at the bowls club we passed on our way to lunch. Perhaps the old folk from Melbourne are taken here after being rounded up and processed. Spent a happy afternoon wandering along the miles of beach, then back for a shower and dinner.

The Great Ocean Road runs from Torquay, to Warrnambool, 300km of winding road. Sometimes the road wanders inland a bit, but mostly it hugs the coastline, offering spectacular views of craggy rocks and sandy coves. This part of the world is known as the Surf Coast, by estate agents anyway, and it certainly seemed that every usable beach had a few surfers on it. We did a detour to have a look at the Erskine Falls, in the Great Otway National Park. As well as the waterfall, we found a big black snake having a bit of a nap on the rocks. We considered waking him up, but decided not to.

Lunch at Apollo Bay, then pressing on the Port Campbell, where the interest lies in the 12 Apostles, a number of sandstone monoliths just off the shore. There may well be twelve, but it’s impossible to find a spot from where you can see more than a few at once. Pic above shows some of them.

We’re staying overnight at Port Fairy, just past Warrnambool. This is a preserved 1850s fishing village, very quaint, and with an air of the wild west of cowboy films about it. Two-storey wooden buildings with verandahs line a broad main street, and you can park right outside wherever you decide to go.

It was St. Patrick’s, and we saw a group of eight or so people dressed as leprechauns (well, dressed in green anyway) carrying instruments, touting themselves from restaurant to restaurant, trying to find someone who would like them to play. We saw them rejected from several joints, and the last we saw of them they were huddled disconsolately in the street, where it had just started to drizzle. How we laughed!

Our next overnight was Hall’s Gap, in the Grampians National Park. On the way we stopped at a little place called Dunkeld, a nice little town, to look for a petrol station. We popped in at the Tourist Information office, which was manned by two old guys, volunteers, who were both retired farmers. They couldn’t have been more helpful. I think they just wanted someone to talk to – they even offered us coffee – and one of them told us that when he was in his twenties he had been to England, and done a few things he wouldn’t have wanted his mum to hear about. Then he went back to Oz and became a model citizen. Many Aussies in their 60s tell the same story.

They had a stats sheet on the desk, showing the numbers of visitors in 2009, by nationality. Lots of Brits, of course, but Germany was the clear winner.

Fire is an ever-present worry here – there are warning signs everywhere – and in 1944 Dunkeld was pretty much burnt to the ground. The Tourist Information place stands on the site where the old town hotel was. A lot of the trees along the side of the road look distinctly singed.

Also, we saw our first kangaroo today – it hopped across the road in front of the car, just as they’re supposed to.

When we got to Hall’s Gap and checked in, we were given a pin and asked to stick it in a map of the world, as near as possible to where we lived. There had been so many
Dutch visitors that he had had to find a bigger Holland and paste it over the real one, just to accommodate all the pins. They must all be sitting in Eindhoven, or wherever, saying “I know, why don’t we go to Hall’s Gap, Victoria, I hear it’s really neat”. Only, in Dutch, of course.

In the afternoon we set off to have a look at Mackenzie Falls, but it was ridiculously hot, well over 30 degrees, and very muggy, and the falls weren’t that great either. Anyway, off to Ballarat in the morning.

The really weird thing about Melbourne is that there are no old people. None at all. Not one. I think they’ve all been rounded up and taken away. It’s a bit spooky walking about because you suspect that at any moment someone will spot you, and have you carted off. I’ve already nearly had my collar felt for banana smuggling, and now I may be in breach of Melbourne’s age laws.

Anyway, as of tomorrow I won’t have to worry because we’ll be off to Torquay (the one in Victoria, obviously) as we start to drive the Great Ocean Road. Everyone says that this is well worth the effort. After Torquay, Port Fairy, then inland and across country to Halls Gap, followed the next night by Ballarat, Then on to Albury (which I think is in NSW) and finally Canberra, where Glenda and Trevor will pick us up and take us to Bateman’s Bay. So eight nights, eight different beds, many miles of driving, and lots of things to see.

Will post when I can.

PS. The lift in our hotel is serviced by a company called Schindler. Schindler’s Lifts? Really?