A Melbourne trip: Day 1

 We haven't seen the daughter for a while so decided to head down for a few days.  As this was quite a quick decision I thought it unlikely we'd be able to get into the IBIS on a Saturday night so explored AirBnB, looking to stay in Docklands.  They offered us about 450 places and seemed to define Docklands as including St Kilda, Footscray, Fitzroy and Collingwood.  (The latter 3 examples made me think of a joke from the 1980s "Which three AFL teams start with F?" to which the answer was "Fitzroy, Footscray and F..... Collingwood.")  We eventually chose a place in West Melbourne - Rosslyn St, close to the Flagstaff Gardens. To the trip.

Bird of the Day got off to a good start with a flock of Choughs before Orbost.  That got topped by 3 Emus in a paddock at Newmerella.

Don't you love road works?  Because of the centre dividers 400m of work required 2 kms of contra flow with huge tailbacks. 

Getting in to Sale there were some nice old buildings: a convent...
... possibly a former bank ...
.. and a pub ...
.. as well as the usual appalling ribbon development beloved of Shire (in this case Wellington) planners.
Leaving Sale we met another tradition of the private sector.  A water tanker so full it spills its load all over the road.

To put some variety in the drive we decided to put in an hour at Holey Pains NP.  This is in the Haunted Hills, mainly covered with pine plantations.

Our GPS and reality didn't match well and tried taking us (eventually) down a road behind a locked gate.  Looking at the Parks map of the area lead us into a possibly navigable swamp, followed closely by a sand dune.  Reverse gear was employed and we followed the Parks map to this charming track.  Perhaps 4 metres wide but the Mazda made it OK.

We eventually got onto the South Gippsland Highway and (via Longford for Rosedale.  Quite a few mre Emus along the way.  The last 5km on the M1 were very slow but got to the apartment we are renting on time and then walked through Flagstaff Gardens to our daughters place.   En route we noticed this possum but didn't try to pat it.
We also met this sausage dog.  Apparently many people in Melbourne put illuminations on their dogs so that if they bolt they can be seen.


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