Drive from Canberra to Melbourne

We had originally planned on driving down to Bateman's Bay and following the coast road along to Melbourne.  This would have taken 3-4 days.  As we had missed doing the coast road down from Sydney due to the poor weather we decided to stick to driving through the middle and continuing to enjoy the rolling countryside.  It also meant we could be in Lakes Entrance in 4 hours rather than 2 days.  It was a lovely drive apart from the bucket in the middle of a 3 lane section of motorway which the car in front knocked right in front of us and David had no option but to go directly over it.  Fortunately no damage (or photos) to the car just a heart workout.

Lakes Entrance is lovely - just as you would imagine from the name.  

This area is lovely and we would comeback again as we didn't have an extra day to travel around it (from choice).  The owner of Albatross Motel, where we were staying, suggested the Eco boat trip and the ferry ride to Raymond Island.  We did the latter as it is home to wild koalas, kangaroos and about 220 different species of bird.  We were on the 8:15 ferry, the weather was glorious and saw lots of Koalas lounging in the tree tops.  It was brilliant and made my day - another tick off my wish list - I wanted to see them in their natural habitat.

After Raymond Island we drove to Inverloch where we were staying for the night.  Unfortunately I am suffering with hay fever and my eyes were streaming so I fell asleep on a lot of it so no pictures.  David thinks Victoria should be called New England as it was like driving through Cumbria or Yorkshire - lots of rolling hills and green pastures.

I did wake up for lunch in Yarra which is an interesting town with murals in all sorts of places.  They are lovely and they give you a map in the Town Hall (and where we stopped for lunch apparently)| to see how many of them you can find.  We didn't do it but did take photos of the ones we saw.

Going back to our comment on post boxes - saw 2 unique ones today - one was a speedboat motor housing and the other was a soldier.  Both very different but passed them too quickly for photos.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to Philip Island even though we were less than an 1 hour so the penguins will have to wait till another visit.  David is needing a break from driving three days in Melbourne on the trams he hopes will sort him out.