2018 – Part 14 – Three States in One Day
Somewhere in a prior post, I mentioned that one part of our trip plan for Australia was to minimize the amount of back tracking, or taking the same route twice. Today was a result of not wanting to travel the same road.
The Plan
Our day started in Canberra, with our next hotel booked in Mt. Gambier, South Australia. This required us to leave the Australian Capital Territory, drive through New South Wales, cross the Murray River and then proceed through the State of Victoria and into South Australia. Sounds easy, and it looked fine on a map. It was devoid of hilly terrain and the roads should allow us to maintain the 100 km/h speed limit. The challenge, how much time would we be sharing the roads with Kangaroos?
Leaving Canberra
After another filling breakfast we then checked out of our hotel and headed up to the Hume highway. This is the only divided highway that connects Melbourne and Sydney. Before getting to the highway though we got to travel on a single lane road through a few towns and villages. On the way we got the comforting news that wildfires shouldn’t be a concern during our drive:
At our first pitstop, while I waited for Amber I snapped this picture from their community bulletin board. This is one of many sanctuaries and rescues that dot the country to help wildlife. Amber was quick to point out the baby wombat in the middle picture followed by “I want to pet one!”.
Hume Highway – NSW to Violet Town
Once on the Hume highway it was easy to drive. Traffic was light and with the ever-present signs to remind drivers of speed cameras the vast majority of vehicles stick to the speed limit, a reasonable 110 km/h. However, a road trip cannot be continuous driving and we made a quick stop for a snack, and to feed her tea requirements. While waiting for her tea, this is what front page news is in Australia. President Trump? Nope. Brexit? No thanks. Potential summit between North Korea & US? Pass. Instead it’s an article about people taking issue with a new restaurant and its presentation of toast with Vegemite.
During this day, we stopped in a few McDonald’s, three to be exact. These outlets became our checkpoints because, they had bathrooms, they had tea for her, and everything is served quickly to not slow down our trek. What I did find hilarious was that cookies was part of their breakfast menu:
A large part of me wanted to know why how Ham & Cheese turns into a pocket:
To continue from the last post, here is another example of “what were Australian cartographers thinking”:
Our next pit stop occurred after we crossed the Murray river and entered Victoria state.
For those following based on the map at the top of the post, Albury is located on the NSW side of the Murray river, and we stopped at a rest stop south of Albury around 11:30am. Having breakfast before 7am made us hungry before noon. We had a picnic lunch thanks to stopping at a grocery store the day before. This helped us avoid a fast food meal for lunch. While stopped I came across something very Australian:
Thanks to friends who gave us a book on Australia before our trip I knew about this! The Royal Flying Doctor Service was formed in the 1920s with the combination of radio communication and planes available after World War I. This non-profit service had saved many lives since it started in 1928.
Bicycles on a Highway
We weren’t surprised that there are bicycle lanes, however bicycles are allowed on the HIGHWAY. The divided highway where traffic is moving at 110 km/h. The scary part is that the bicycles have to cross the on- and off- ramps! After seeing a few signs we had to get pictures of this:
One final road sign that I made Amber laugh over:
Everytime I saw this sign I would read it out and at the end of the “POWERNAP NOW” I would make a snoring sound. Taken literally, encouraging a nap while driving is not positively contributing to road safety. There ended up being a whole series of these road signs where the answer was always to have a power nap.
Country Roads
We turned off the Hume Highway probably an hour after crossing the Murray river, and quickly passed through a small community called Violet Town. 
Instead of continuing to drive south on the highway towards Melbourne and then west to Mt. Gambier, we took a route avoiding the city. The first road worked well and got us to Bendigo in good time. On our way a few things of note. First up, the next instalment of confused cartographers:
New wildlife sign! Up until this point I think we had only seen warnings for Kangaroos and Wombats. My guess was the reason for the warning sign was because Koalas would fall out of the trees near the road — that’s completely wrong. When we get to a wildlife sanctuary later we found out why these signs are needed (no spoiler today).
The typical small Australian town requirement, a hotel. Main floor would be the bar and a restaurant and upstairs would be the hotel rooms. These hotels were quite common as we continued on our drive. It felt like the first thing built in a town was the hotel. Part of me wonders if they were constructed first for it to sell alcohol instead of being a place for travellers to rest.
Now, a three picture summary of what the drive to Bendigo was like:
Bendigo
We arrived in Bendigo in the middle of the afternoon, probably 3-4pm. The good side was that meant we had been on the road for almost 7 hours. The downside was that we had upwards of 4-5 hours to go. Even though we were driving west I didn’t think the sun would set in South Australia at 9pm and realized that I would be driving at night. We had another stop at McDonald’s and decided on an early dinner. We had chicken nuggets and we loved the ability to have Garlic aioli as one of four dipping sauces. Yum!
The city itself was a good break from driving through rural areas — yes I had missed being in traffic and navigating traffic lights. Bendigo became popular during the 19th century gold rush, and helped explain why a city of less than 100,000 people had this running in the middle of the main road:
Bendigo to Mt. Gambier
For me this portion of the drive was broken up into three sections:
A) Last bits of Daylight
The upside of driving in rural Australia at sunset was the impressive view and spectacular colours. They were outstanding.
The pictures try, but don’t convey the beauty of what we saw. I quite enjoyed peeking at it while we continued to head south west.
After stopping at — guess what? — another McDonald’s the sun had set and it was time to tell Amber about my lack of enthusiasm for the remainder of the drive. Kangaroos.
Kangaroos?
These lovely creatures have three things that make them a huge concern for drivers at night. The first is that the animals come out at dusk and dawn to eat. The second is that their primary food source are short plants, and grasses. Grass, like what grows beside EVERY ROAD WE WERE DRIVING. To a Kangaroo, speeding metal machines would occasionally appear between their food at night. To me as a driver, well, I really didn’t want to find out how to put through a collision claim with a rental car tonight. The third, is that there are lots of them in Australia. It’s not a matter of if you see Kangaroos while driving at night, it’s a matter of how many you see.
B) Truckers are my friend
For those who have an understanding of physics, transport trucks are a wee bit bigger than a Kangaroo. Any encounter between these two result in wildlife not coming out victorious. As we were driving along towards our next town, I spotted and sped up to the tail lights in front of me. For over an hour I comfortably drove behind the transport truck in the belief that no Kangaroo would try and jump between the truck and us.
The downside of following a transport was that its headlights were bright, and brilliantly illuminated all of the Kangaroos that would be at the side of the road. This was especially effective at every curve in the road. Amber kept count. At first it felt slow, but very quickly the count went up. We saw the most impressive Kangaroo as we approached one of these curves. As our headlights flooded the side of the road two Kangaroos were standing. One was tall. Taller than me tall. I’d guess at least 2 metres tall. That’s definitely a creature I don’t want to meet using the hood of the car I’m driving. Here’s a blurry shot of what our view was for part of the drive. The moon set a few hours after sunset.
C) All alone
Sadly the trucker slowed and stopped before entering a town. We had spent a good hour following it, and once the street lights of the town ended, I no longer had a transport truck clearing the way. We certainly saw many more Kangaroos. Our final count was 14. Amber switched between looking out for Kangaroos and staring at the night’s sky. Being hundreds of kms away from any major city it was easy to see the stars while crossing the countryside.
Civilization!
The two things that improved my mood was the sign welcoming us to South Australia, along with the many signs telling us of the food that cannot be imported into the state. Even on a rural road there were designated bins to dump your banned food items before continuing further into the state. Passing these signs meant we were close to our stop. Mt Gambier is less than 20 km west of the Victoria/South Australia state border. The second and most important item that got me excited was seeing the light pollution from the town of Mt. Gambier.
We arrived in the town and easily found out hotel. Exhausted, we did the typical items, check-in, park the car for the night and head to our assigned room for the night.
In total we clocked just around 1,030km and spent 14 hours, including many breaks, travelling. With only a smattering of bugs on the hood and license plate I was happy that that was the only wildlife we met with the car.
Read more about our trip by clicking here.