More local tourism

After a last-minute change in plans regarding my Easter long weekend adventures (I was meant to go to my grandmother's place, but there was a slight glitch in that plan), I ended up spending the weekend doing more semi-local tourism, by driving a loop around from Melbourne to Wangaratta, over Mt Hotham to Bairnsdale, then back along the coast - about 1100km all up, which I split over 3 days to give me plenty of tourism time along the way. So, it was a weekend spent doing things I enjoy doing: driving reasonably fast (cough... no more than 100km/h, of course, because any more than that would clearly be irresponsible and wrong of me...), taking photos of stuff, and singing along with music that's turned up slightly too loud...

The area just north of Melbourne has a lot of roads that look like this photo (and yes, I did use the freeway a lot of the way, but the back roads are far more interesting...)


A couple of hours north of Melbourne is the tourist-kitsch town of Glenrowan, famous only for the fact that it's where an outlaw (and homemade-armoured and spectacularly bearded folk hero) by the name of Ned Kelly was eventually shot and captured by the police about 130 years ago - as depicted so realistically by this elegant and refned sculpture located on the site of his capture:


From there, the next obvious destination is up into the mountains - and yes, they're only just over 1800m tall, so they're not exactly the Swiss Alps, but they're high enough to get snowed on in winter, while being gentle enough to drive up, as you will soon see...


And given that this holiday was just me and my car, I did feel the need to take a photo of two of my 'travelling partner'...


And some more photos from up the top of the mountain, including the sections of eucalypt forest that got burnt a couple of years ago and don't yet have all their leaves back:









And here's another one of the car, with the summit of Mt Hotham (and a ski lift) just behind it:


Then off down the other side of the mountain, there's some more classic Australian scenery:










Then on just a fraction further and down towards the coast, the Ninety Mile Beach appears, along with some more coastal scenery and little port towns:






And finally, just to prove its resilience, here's a tree down in Gippsland which was incinerated in the recent 'Black Saturday' fires, and which is already starting to grow back again.


So having done all of that, I have an observation or three:
- Bugs splatter really badly when you hit a big flock of them at high (cough)sorry, moderate (cough) speed... I got to spend an hour or so this afternoon returning my car to its normal blueness, back from its previous colour of blue-with-liberal-splattering-of-multicoloured-bug-guts.
- Anyone driving more than 20km/h below the speed limit should be ticketed, in the same way that people driving over the limit are. Particularly those who are either (a) driving large trucks at 40km/h on roads that are clearly unsuitable for them, with 100km/h speed limits, (b) towing caravans, (c) driving a kombi van (particularly those who are driving the traditional old soot-belching versions), (d) towing a horse-float, (e) clearly terrified of driving at any more than 60, and/or (f) in my way. Although, having said all of that, the 350Z has a willingness to accelerate and overtake that I've never come across in any other car, it's almost as if it's just sitting on 100 waiting for a chance to go faster, and will grab any opportunity it can get...
- $75 will buy a very habitable motel room in country Victoria, even on a public holiday long weekend
- I love driving twisty mountain roads in a nice sports car, although it can be a fraction rough on the poor tyres...