No Sat Nav – Day 2

Dear Family and Friends,

The feature of today’s travelling was our on-again/off-again relationship with the Hume.

Itinerary: Albury to Melbourne, via Beechworth, Euroa and Seymour.

Distance travelled:  I kid you not, the odometer showed exactly 330.0km when we parked this evening.  A little less than yesterday.

Weather:  A lot of rain.  Turns out Melbourne peaked at 14 degrees today.  May I remind everyone that it is November and summer is officially three weeks away.

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Beechworth is worth a re-visit.  We were only there for a couple of hours, but would prefer instead a long weekend or even week-long stay.  There is a lot of variety, thankfully, because Ned Kelly gets stale quickly.  I should have counted how many times the lady at the Information Centre mentioned his name when all Mum asked for was a little book about Beechworth.

The Beechworth prison is now only a tourist venue.  Looking very out of place in this old building, and tucked in behind a locked gate, is a Closed Loop Organic food recycling system.

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We stopped at Seymour to check out the  Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk.  I expected something taller, accustomed as I am to the imposing memorials in Canberra, but both Mum and I were impressed by the coloured glass panels.

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The No Sat Nav approach was working fine until we hit the streets of Melbourne …

I cannot explain why I got hiccups as soon as we passed the “Welcome to Melbourne” sign. I cannot tell you when they disappeared because I was concentrating on working out where we might be and where we needed to be.  My maps were new, but not very detailed.  A couple of awkward lane changes were required to ensure we kept on course.

It struck me that a city is a city.  Sometimes, I could not have told you if we were in Melbourne or Sydney; until I found myself following a tram down Elizabeth St, for blocks and blocks and blocks.  My hands were full with the steering wheel, so I threw the video camera at Mum and now she’s an expert.

After a dodgy U-turn because I couldn’t turn right into Flinders St when I wanted, and after fumbling around the major and minor streets of Southbank, we accidentally stumbled upon the sign for the car park which is across the road from our hotel.

Hopefully, there’ll be more photos over the next two days because we’ll be wandering the streets of Melbourne without the car.