Well, yesterday wrapped up well. After the cool Melbourne Food & Wine Fest BBQ, we met up with a friend of Aneta’s from university who lives in Sydney. He (Marian) drove all the way from Sydney, picking up his nephew Boyan in Canberra on the way. Boyan is a senior in high school and just moved (along with his family) to Australia 2 months ago. We met up and went to a playground and Alex just could not get enough – we were there for maybe 2 hours. Next, we met up with Marian’s Melbourne friends (also from Bulgaria) – Kamen and his wife Ivaila ("Eva"). Nice folks, it was funny because they would share what they loved about Sydney and Marian would share why he likes Melbourne. Maybe they could switch houses. Anyhow, we had a very good dinner and enjoyed their company quite a bit. Marian, his wife Michaela, and their kids Michelle, Mark, and Max will be hosting me and Alex for four days in Sydney, so it was great to meet him ahead of time. Yes, their last name begins with M as well, so I assume that they like M&M’s. 
This morning we got up and took turns packing while the other one entertained Alex out front at Brunetti’s. That really is a good coffee shop. Anyhow, we got out kind of early and stopped in the Italian neighborhood on Lygon for breakfast on the way to the airport.
We went to the airport, kissed goodbye, and were on for our next stage. It was really great to have Aneta with us – at the very least it was sort of an air of normalcy in this adventure. More to the point, I love spending time with her. Yeah, Alex likes her too and I think she likes him (first born and all), but it was cool to spend a week of city vacation with her in one of our favorite cities. Melbourne has a European feel to it, as the oldest and most established Aussie city. It has a great sidewalk café culture and is absolutely cosmopolitan. On the other hand, it is laid back and friendly like anywhere in Australia. Getting back to Aneta, I think she enjoyed seeing us too. She is on her way and will endure a very long Sunday (43 hours since Melbourne is 19 hours ahead of San Francisco). Alex has already asked for her more times than he can count since 11:15am (estimate – 15 times).
Now I don’t mean to be a bore with this complaining about Australian road networks, but the country is otherwise extraordinarily efficient. Melbourne does at least have a few highways (or dual carriageways, if you prefer). There is one highway from the northwest corner of downtown to the airport, but it is a toll road requiring prepayment half the way. If you don’t have the foresight to know the road is a toll road and go find a place to buy a DayPass in advance, you’re out of luck. Even those toll roads don’t go through town, just to it. Second, their ring roads don’t go all the way around, so taking the bypass “Western Ring” which becomes the “Metropolitan Ring” just leaves you stranded in some village in the Northeast corner of town, 50km on winding county roads from where you want to go. The net result is that the most efficient way to get from the airport to the road East to Gippsland is right through the heart of downtown stoplight traffic (note: this is true whether you’ve got the DayPass or not, you’re on surface streets through downtown). For that reason, on a relatively light traffic Sunday morning, it took more than an hour to get from the airport onto the freeway on the other side of town and I drove right past my hotel to do so. There has just got to be a better way than burdening the city center streets with “through traffic”. I hear Sydney has “the bad traffic” and I’ll get to experience it like a local from an inland suburb on weekdays, so expect more whining (or “whinging” as we say here) on the topic.
In the interest of getting to East Gippsland before too long, we took the more direct Princes Highway rather than the more coast-hugging South Gippsland Highway. The scenery was quite good and unlike certain portions of Australia, this region looked very familiar. Rolling forested hills, wide valleys with mountain ridges on both sides (especially the North), this could pass for Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley or central Pennsylvania or various parts of Germany if you didn’t look at the trees too closely. Somewhere around Traralgon (easy for you to say), the road went from a divided highway with 2 lanes in either direction to what I’ve seen in most of Australia (2 lanes, dotted line), but with more overtaking lanes than previously.
We had a great experience at Sale’s info center (it is pronounced like it looks, FYI). I was curious if they had a way to contact the Phillip Island info center to get Alex another “Phil” (reminder below). They took it one step further, they called the folks there and the Phillip Island folks were willing to ship it to the Cairns Hilton for $5. We’ll have a reunion as Alex’s missing stuffed penguin Phil “migrates” to Cairns for the fall. Should be cool, I’ll have the camera handy. They also booked this place in Lakes Entrance – the RSL Glenara.
The hotel is basic but a great value. The motel is right across from the marina and a floating seafood restaurant (The Ferryman’s or something like that) where we had a very good meal this evening. The town – really this whole region - is a nice little vacation destination. The Gippsland Lakes are salt water but not quite deep enough to call a bay or harbor and the shorelines are too distinct to call it a marsh or swamp. Very pretty and great for yachting around if I judge by the boats I see across the street. Anyhow, Lakes Entrance is where the sea and this network of lakes meet. We wanted to go to Raymond Island, as recommended by Kel (this blog’s authority on all things Gippsland), but it was late in the day so the timing just did not work out. Still, Lakes Entrance is a right good destination on its own. The bridge in the background of Alex in one of the pictures (just below) is the bridge we crossed to get to Ocean Beach. For the first time in my life, I realized I was not sure which ocean it referred to (and I am actually still not entirely sure). I’m essentially in the southeastern corner of continental Australia. According to the map, the ocean is the “Bass Straight”, running between here and Tasmania. On one side is the Tasman Sea on the other is the Southern Ocean. My guess is that Tasman Sea would be the correct answer. All I know is that those were legit ocean waves.
Like I mentioned, the place we are staying is clean, inexpensive and basic. But it has one tremendous selling point – the reception is open until 11pm - later than most any motel in Australia. Why does that matter? Well, the room next to me is empty, but the alarm clock went off at 8:30 or so this evening. In most places, that would mean I was doomed to a subtle, distant, yet insistent “beep beep beep” throughout the night. Not so here – I just told the manager and …ahhh, there he just got it (I waited on that elipse for about 3 minutes).
My preconception that this place was a tiny little never-never land have been replaced by “great place for people in Melbourne and Sydney to get away for a weekend or a week, maybe own or rent a boat, maybe have a place (on the water) to get away from it all and get out on the water”. “East Gippsland” still sounds remote – and I am in it. Still, I wish we could spend another day or so getting out on the water.
Next: drive to Sydney via Canberra. Suspected highlights include: driving near Mt. Kosciusko (tallest mountain on the continent at 2228m or about 7000 ft – the shortest tallest mountain of all continents) on the Snowy Mountains Highway (no idea if I’ll see it, I turn off for Canberra 60km away from it), seeing the visually attractive Canberra without enduring its legendarily bad nightlife, getting to M, M, M, M, & M M’s house in Sydney.
This morning we got up and took turns packing while the other one entertained Alex out front at Brunetti’s. That really is a good coffee shop. Anyhow, we got out kind of early and stopped in the Italian neighborhood on Lygon for breakfast on the way to the airport.
We went to the airport, kissed goodbye, and were on for our next stage. It was really great to have Aneta with us – at the very least it was sort of an air of normalcy in this adventure. More to the point, I love spending time with her. Yeah, Alex likes her too and I think she likes him (first born and all), but it was cool to spend a week of city vacation with her in one of our favorite cities. Melbourne has a European feel to it, as the oldest and most established Aussie city. It has a great sidewalk café culture and is absolutely cosmopolitan. On the other hand, it is laid back and friendly like anywhere in Australia. Getting back to Aneta, I think she enjoyed seeing us too. She is on her way and will endure a very long Sunday (43 hours since Melbourne is 19 hours ahead of San Francisco). Alex has already asked for her more times than he can count since 11:15am (estimate – 15 times).
Now I don’t mean to be a bore with this complaining about Australian road networks, but the country is otherwise extraordinarily efficient. Melbourne does at least have a few highways (or dual carriageways, if you prefer). There is one highway from the northwest corner of downtown to the airport, but it is a toll road requiring prepayment half the way. If you don’t have the foresight to know the road is a toll road and go find a place to buy a DayPass in advance, you’re out of luck. Even those toll roads don’t go through town, just to it. Second, their ring roads don’t go all the way around, so taking the bypass “Western Ring” which becomes the “Metropolitan Ring” just leaves you stranded in some village in the Northeast corner of town, 50km on winding county roads from where you want to go. The net result is that the most efficient way to get from the airport to the road East to Gippsland is right through the heart of downtown stoplight traffic (note: this is true whether you’ve got the DayPass or not, you’re on surface streets through downtown). For that reason, on a relatively light traffic Sunday morning, it took more than an hour to get from the airport onto the freeway on the other side of town and I drove right past my hotel to do so. There has just got to be a better way than burdening the city center streets with “through traffic”. I hear Sydney has “the bad traffic” and I’ll get to experience it like a local from an inland suburb on weekdays, so expect more whining (or “whinging” as we say here) on the topic.
In the interest of getting to East Gippsland before too long, we took the more direct Princes Highway rather than the more coast-hugging South Gippsland Highway. The scenery was quite good and unlike certain portions of Australia, this region looked very familiar. Rolling forested hills, wide valleys with mountain ridges on both sides (especially the North), this could pass for Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley or central Pennsylvania or various parts of Germany if you didn’t look at the trees too closely. Somewhere around Traralgon (easy for you to say), the road went from a divided highway with 2 lanes in either direction to what I’ve seen in most of Australia (2 lanes, dotted line), but with more overtaking lanes than previously.
We had a great experience at Sale’s info center (it is pronounced like it looks, FYI). I was curious if they had a way to contact the Phillip Island info center to get Alex another “Phil” (reminder below). They took it one step further, they called the folks there and the Phillip Island folks were willing to ship it to the Cairns Hilton for $5. We’ll have a reunion as Alex’s missing stuffed penguin Phil “migrates” to Cairns for the fall. Should be cool, I’ll have the camera handy. They also booked this place in Lakes Entrance – the RSL Glenara.
The hotel is basic but a great value. The motel is right across from the marina and a floating seafood restaurant (The Ferryman’s or something like that) where we had a very good meal this evening. The town – really this whole region - is a nice little vacation destination. The Gippsland Lakes are salt water but not quite deep enough to call a bay or harbor and the shorelines are too distinct to call it a marsh or swamp. Very pretty and great for yachting around if I judge by the boats I see across the street. Anyhow, Lakes Entrance is where the sea and this network of lakes meet. We wanted to go to Raymond Island, as recommended by Kel (this blog’s authority on all things Gippsland), but it was late in the day so the timing just did not work out. Still, Lakes Entrance is a right good destination on its own. The bridge in the background of Alex in one of the pictures (just below) is the bridge we crossed to get to Ocean Beach. For the first time in my life, I realized I was not sure which ocean it referred to (and I am actually still not entirely sure). I’m essentially in the southeastern corner of continental Australia. According to the map, the ocean is the “Bass Straight”, running between here and Tasmania. On one side is the Tasman Sea on the other is the Southern Ocean. My guess is that Tasman Sea would be the correct answer. All I know is that those were legit ocean waves.
Like I mentioned, the place we are staying is clean, inexpensive and basic. But it has one tremendous selling point – the reception is open until 11pm - later than most any motel in Australia. Why does that matter? Well, the room next to me is empty, but the alarm clock went off at 8:30 or so this evening. In most places, that would mean I was doomed to a subtle, distant, yet insistent “beep beep beep” throughout the night. Not so here – I just told the manager and …ahhh, there he just got it (I waited on that elipse for about 3 minutes).
My preconception that this place was a tiny little never-never land have been replaced by “great place for people in Melbourne and Sydney to get away for a weekend or a week, maybe own or rent a boat, maybe have a place (on the water) to get away from it all and get out on the water”. “East Gippsland” still sounds remote – and I am in it. Still, I wish we could spend another day or so getting out on the water.
Next: drive to Sydney via Canberra. Suspected highlights include: driving near Mt. Kosciusko (tallest mountain on the continent at 2228m or about 7000 ft – the shortest tallest mountain of all continents) on the Snowy Mountains Highway (no idea if I’ll see it, I turn off for Canberra 60km away from it), seeing the visually attractive Canberra without enduring its legendarily bad nightlife, getting to M, M, M, M, & M M’s house in Sydney.
2 comments:
Hey, hunn, made it to SF safe and sound. A bit jet lagged, but that is quite normal.
Was soooo good hanging out with you and Alex on your epic trip. You are an awesome Dad as evidenced by how happy Alex is.
Have fun in Sydney
hey sorry we missed you in our part of East Gippsland...
and for the sake of any other tourists planning a trip from Melb airport to East Gippsland, the fastest way is to go south in the CityLink western link tollway and then southern link and you'll be out the Eastern side of Melbourne and heading into rural country in 20 minutes flat :)
http://www.citylink.com.au/files/CL_Attractions_Map.pdf
enjoy the Monaro Highway
best coffee in Bombala cafe on right side of highway as heading to Canberra
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