Mildura - Canberra
A long day of driving today; we got up early to make the most of the cool mornings and headed off with a full tank just before 8am.
One of the more interesting sights outside Mildura were rows of orange trees. Often along the road were little unmanned huts with bags of oranges hanging for $2 a bag.
The trip involved briefly heading through the following towns:
* Mildura
* Balranald
* Hay (bumper sticker available in garage: “Where the hell is Hay?”)
* Leeton
* Narrandera (lunch: a rather nice burger from the only shop open in the whole town)
* Wagga Wagga (suddenly mountains appear - astonishing, in comparison to the flatness of the plains)
* Yass (up in the hills, a lovely area)
* Canberra
Wildlife watch: today we caught a glimpse of what we think was a wedge-tailed eagle; quite an amazingly big bird!
Canberra is a strange place; only really forty years old, extremely carefully laid out, with the parliament as a focal point. We drove through to the Forrest area just south of the parliament building where we were staying. Once we’d got ourselves sorted out we wandered down the road to the Manuka area for a rather nice dinner at a nearby Malaysian restaurant, then home for some well-earned rest.
The total journey: about 800km in 9 hours and 20 minutes - an average of just over 85 km/hour. Not too bad, considering we had to stop for half an hour for lunch! It was a big relief to do the longest stretch of the holiday through the least populated areas without any problems.