Yet another road trip! Just when I should be getting sick and tired of them. This semester has been rough in terms of academia. Very often I found myself taking time off from reading journals or typing out of essays to plan this trip to Sydney. For some reason, I enjoy planning road trips and its a pleasure whenever my friends and passengers are happy (if they are happy) with the itenary they experience.
We started of with a full car from Clayton made out of Yasmeen, Kang Wei, Chien Aun, Sheen Li and myself on the early morning of July 10th, 2009. Our final destination was Sydney the next evening. 
Our first stop was at the Monash Gippsland campus. It was a pleasant surprise, I honestly loved the place! It was clean, very new looking, fairly big and most importantly – pretty. Too bad Berwick lacks the size while Caulfield lacks the charm.
We went onward to Lakes Entrance, our scheduled stop for lunch. At that point we were 2-3 hours into our trip with an estimated 3 hours to go before reaching our stop at Merimbula, New South Wales. We spent a fair deal at Lakes to eat and to walk around. Unfortunately most things close 5, including the boat rentals which we intended to go for. After buying dinner at Safeways (Suimin cup noddles) we continuedon our journey. The first day was nothing much. The only pleasant surprise were the stars at night. We pulled over at the VIC-NSW’s border to for a group shot and to star gaze. Away from any towns in middle of no where, the stars seem to more radient. We could even see gas clouds!
The beautiful stars along the dark Princes Highway road to Sydney
We stayed the night at Merimbula Beach Holiday Park, located rought 45 minutes after the NSW-VIC border, arriving after 10pm. Upon arrival, we were surprised by the amount of wild rabbits running around. Too bad we weren’t able to catch any. The accomadation itself was cheap for what we got – only $25 per person. The town was only visible the next morning, but first, we headed to the beach for a nice stroll. Merimbula town is a humble fishing village, with some emphasis to tourism. There was an airfield near by for those unlike us who are rich and wish not to endure hours in a car. After a big breakfast meal, we continued northwards to Sydney.
Our next stop was a town called Tathra. It was an unscheduled stop. My idea was just to visit any tourist attractions a town would have. In Tathra was this historical wharf. Good thing for me, I brought my fishing rods! The bad the was we were using the wrong bait (typical). Pipi’s were too soft and fragile for what we were after.. fish with small mouths, and our rods were setup too loose. He had a few convincing nimbles though. But how embarassing it was for us to end up with nothing while other anglers around us had something like 4-5 fishes each.
The next 3-4 hours saw us sticking to on to our journey with just another stop at Wollongong. It was straight on to the Sydney. Initially, I had planned to arrive around 11pm. However, we arrived at about 8.30pm. My motive – I wanted to avoid the narrow, congested and extremely confusing roads of Sydney, not to mention The insane parking cost (cheapest place I found was $29 a day, while the meters charge $5.50 an hour!). I managed to find a way to dodge the meters – park further out. There are free parking lots at least two stations away from Central Station. So that’s what I did, though I did worry for my car’s security and the possibility of summons.
We started our full day in Sydney on a high – breakfast at Sydney Fish Market. Man! I will miss the sashimi, cheese baked oysters, scallops and the fresh fried fish! As for the rest of the day, I do not really remember everything I did, but basically we went back to the same places as well as trying other’s I’ve not been to before.
One of those on the checklist was the Lowenrau restaurant, a place I’ve heard time and again of it’s fantastic German sausages. And wow – I was super satisfied with what I had. We ordered pork knuckles as well as a sausage platter. Other destinations covered included Manly Beach, McElhone Place, a tropical fish shop (the best I’ve seen in Australia) and a few paper shops which Yasmeen wanted to visit.
There were really only two full days in Sydney. In a short time we found ourselves packing our bags and moving on the last last phase of our road trip back to Melbourne. We headed onward to Canberra, making passing through a few towns which beared little interest. We left Sydney with two cars, and though both cars travelled out of the city together, we somehow got seperated (or more like I zoomed away, Ruo’s car was way too slow). Apparently the other car stumbled upon a reputable bakery at Bowrai and talked about it throughout the trip to a point it qualified as annoying. We on the other hand we took the routeto Berrima, which gave a feel similiar to Mount Dandenong with all it’s cafes and antique shops. However, we decided to by pass the town and straight into another town called Goulburn. We visited a war memorial tower overlook the entire town as well as having our own award winning pies at a well known bakery. After a brief hour, we moved on towards Canberra.
It was a fantastic scenic drive, with open plains which reminded me of the Plains of Palenor in Lord of the Rings, windmills and mountain terrains which ran for miles. After about an hour, we reached Canberra with only and hour and a half to spare. We visited all we could – Bunker Hill, the War Memorial.. in time to catch them playing the Last Post. We it last minutes of daylight we ascended Mount Ainslie for a scenic lookout which was utterly breathtaking. On the way down we almost ran over a kangaroo. From there it was a straight drive to Wagga Wagga where we stayed the night.
The next day proved to be an “interesting” drive towards Wangaratta, passing through major towns such as The Rowck, Culcairn and Albury, where we meet up with the OCFers from Melbourne University. After that, we experience countless U-turns for hours while trying to look for a bar which we did not even dine in. We ended daylight again at a scenic lookout point in Wadonga, where the pictures below were taken. The place was also close to 1 degrees celcius, taking it a bloody cold place to be.
Time passed by relatively quick and we found ourselves at Wangaratta for dinner and for the night. The next day we were off trying out wineries in the famour Milawa region. One particular winery of interest was the Brown Brothers winery which had a fantastic selection of wine. I bought a bottle of dolcetto and syrah for myself. Annother noted stop is the Milawa Cheese factory and a mustard factory – which I’d say was pretty interesting having a range of mustards to taste from mild to spicy. I even bought some mustard from them.
After a couple more stops in Milawa we headed straight to Mansfield, near Mount Buller for lunch. From there both cars seperated as the other car wanted to head up to Buller while mine just wanted to go home. Our final stop was yet another lookout point in Eildon National Park where I found a new destination to camp.
After dinner at Rich Mahal, 7 days into the trip, we finally reached Clayton at 9pm, in time to collect our results. I would like to thank my carmates as well as other OCFers from the trip for making it a memorable ride. Also, a big thanks to my car which has remarkably out done itself, bringing me interstate for the THIRD time.
Quite a blessed trip. Can’t wait for the next!
