den | Road Trip

Day 0 was all travel from Dubbo to Melbourne. Ada the GPS* got me through Melbourne with no hassles except for once telling me to turn left to get to

azhdragon's place, when no turn existed. She was a little fixated with travelling on the motorways and didn't like me taking minor roads. The motorways through Melbourne are great, except they make my e-tag bleep alarmingly every few kilometres. I wonder how badly my account was hit.

The day was quite cool, grey and raining, of course. It always rains in Melbourne.

azhdragon, Deb and I loaded ourselves into the Mk2 Batmobile and headed into the Dandenong Range. We ended up at Grant's Picnic Ground, a small area surrounded by tall stringybark trees, a species of eucalyptus that is the tallest flowering plant. We saw a few kookaburras, many mountain rosellas, and my first wild lyrebird.

Deb fed a rosella, but I know how hard they can bite so I didn't.

My very first wild lyrebird

From there we headed to the very top of Mount Dandenong. It would have been really nice if the sun was shining. Even so, the view was pretty spectacular. Melbourne looks good from a distance.

We wandered around, saw The Big Chair, and went inside for a warm-up and coffee.

azhdragon and Deb

Then I dragged my helpless passengers down to Emerald Lakes so I could put on my anorak and look at the Puffing Billy steam train. Today's engine was a Garrett!

Anorak off, and then to the cafe for a very nice late lunch and back to Berwick.

Dinner that night was at

damienps and

jazzerat's place. I wish I'd taken my camera to get some photo of Damien's Starwars lego.

I got back to Alex & Deb's at 11pm.

Have some random photos.

Wood Ducks