Narrandara to Bendigo

1 - 2 May

A couple more heavy travelling days - we were keen to cover a lot of ground to get to the scenic Grampian Mountains across the border in Victoria in order to get out and do some more serious walking.

We stopped for a quick stretch of the legs in quiet Narrandera , and ended up clothes shopping (a smart and warm striped cotton shirt was just too good to resist).

Then onward to Culcairn. The only thing worthy of note about this stage of the journey is that Victoria is positively obsessive about preventing the introduction of fruit flies and other pests into the state, and you are required to ditch any fruit in your possession before crossing the state boundary (roadside fruit disposal bins are provided!) or else face a hefty fine - from $200 up to $11,000 AUD if caught. Thus after stuffing our faces we sadly parted company with a perfectly healthy pair of bananas before continuing...

Tuesday 2 May

From Culcairn, we wanted to make it as far as Bendigo today, but a full day on the road isn't fun for anyone, and so to break the long journey we headed to Milawa to visit the producers of some of our favourite Australian wines. Of course it would be unfair to give the winery in question a free plug by writing their name here.

I shpent a pleashant morning tasting numeroush different wines (Sharon was driving), and we happily came away with six exclusive bottles available only from the Cellar Door. Cheers!

Pressing on, we passed through Glenrowan famous as the site of Ned Kelly (and his gang's) last stand. Although a great deal is made of this Australian icon, we didn't feel inclined to linger here.

Instead we made good progress to Bendigo (see next entry), and our camp site just outside the city centre.