We have booked to go and see "Xerxes" an opera by Handel at the Malthouse theatre on the evening of Saturday 5 October. This meant we headed West on Saturday, rather than Sunday morning. As we drove through Mallacoota there were lots of roos beside the road. Fortunately we didn't collect one.
There was quite a lot of traffic heading into Mallacoota as well - much more than on Sundays. Perhaps the fish are running? That changed from Genoa to Cann River, where we didn't see a car! After swapping drivers at Newmerella the traffic was back and many of those heading in our direction had obviously got their licence off a Weetbix packet: slow as old moles!
A State election is due in November. I noticed a couple of signs for the new Nationals candidate, following the retirement of Tim Bull. Frances saw a big <1 Notion sign on a rather low budget motel at Traralgon.
Then as we approached Pakenham (having already lost about 15 minutes on our arrival time) Google Maps started burbling about collisions on the M1 (Monash Freeway) with significant delays and offering alternate routes. We have said several times that we will ignore these blandishments but headed off, full of trust. The route seemed busy, probably due to Google Maps directing everyone that way. Here is my best guess at where we went.
You will notice the trip into the suburb soon after leaving the M1 and the big loop South of the Old Princes Highway. Presumably some organ of the Victorian Government 💩had some input here, as there was no common sense to going off the main roads in either case.
When we eventually got back to the M1 there was very little traffic coming from the East, so my guess is the road was pretty much blocked so the decision to go for plan B was probably good. However we need to have a strategy for getting a handle on what the idiots at Google and the Victorian Government are telling us to do and ignoring their dives into suburbs,
On on to the Domain tunnel and Kingsway in its usual congested state. The trip ended up taking 6hrs 30 minutes whereas our Sunday trip are usually close to 6 hours (and the last one home was only 5:30).
In the evening we headed off to the Malthouse, taking a tram to Grant St. Walking down there we had nice views of the lit up buildings in the area.
The exhaust stack for the Domain Tunnel was attractively illuminated.
According to Google Lens this is "the
Guardian Lion, a large illuminated public sculpture by artist
Troy Emery at
Melbourne Square in Southbank". I think this is the first time we have seen it lit up.
Coming out of the performance I liked the view across the Arts precinct towards the CBD. I found the highrise on the right particularly good as it was in motion, but this image doesn't show it off well.
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