Yass to Melbourne

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We hadn’t been on the road long this morning when we encountered our first traffic problem. A truck had veered into the median strip near Bookham, so all the traffic was being funnelled into a single lane and vehicles were in attendance looking at the logistics for extracting the truck from the median strip. It hadn’t rolled or crashed into trees so damage should have been minimal and … thank goodness … it had not careered all the way across the median strip and into oncoming traffic.

Our first stop of the day was five miles from Gundagai at the Dog on the Tucker Box. Another trip along the Hume Highway, another photo of the famous dog! We encountered more people having car problems. Near where we had parked the truck a family had disconnected their van from their Prado so that the Prado could be winched onto a tilt truck to be taken into town (Gundagai?) to be fixed. THAT sure puts a dampener on your holiday. It was one of two broken Prados that we saw today. Not a great advertisement for Toyota!

Tracey was at the wheel from Gundagai to Holbrook where we stopped to visit the submarine. It just cracks us up that there is a submarine preserved in Holbrook a town so far from the ocean. It certainly makes a great stop for families though providing an interesting attraction for children to explore while the family is taking a rest stop.

Bernie was back at the wheel for the leg to the North Albury Truck Stop. He had searched for the best place to refuel for the final push for home and had decided that the truck stop was it. After refueling and washing the front and rear windscreens we purchased servo sandwiches for lunch. It just seemed easier than venturing into Albury or Wodonga to find something more appetizing. The truck stop had some picnic tables that were under shade where we were able to eat our lunch.

Back in the truck it wasn’t long before we were crossing the border back into Victoria, Tracey just managing to snap the Welcome to Victoria sign as we passed it.

It was a shame that we couldn’t quite hang on for lunch at Glenrowan as the bakery there makes outstanding salad rolls that we have enjoyed on a couple of other trips this way. Having already eaten we didn’t venture into Glenrowan but continued along the highway past the solar farm at Glenrowan West.

Knowing that there had been so much rain in Victoria earlier in the week we were on the lookout for the aftereffects of the flooding. In north-eastern Victoria there were still signs out indicating that local roads running from the Hume Freeway were still closed due to the weather event last weekend.

As we drove around Seymour, we crossed the Goulburn River which was still lapping at its banks, and we could see that the grass in the surrounding fields was still flattened from being inundated when the river burst its banks. However, as far as we have been able to tell, road closures were restricted to local roads. When we were checking that our route home remained open, we were unable to find any reports of the Hume being closed at any time during the flood emergency. Of course, the flooding was a huge problem for residents in a number of towns in central Victoria, but the main route between Melbourne and Sydney was spared.

Wanting a photo for Facebook we tried to recall where the spot is that you get your first glimpse of the City of Melbourne. Tracey was ready with the camera for many, many, many kilometres. We kept driving around sweeping bends thinking ‘this is it’ only to find that we were still too far away. By the time we reached Kalkallo we were starting to think that there is no panoramic view of Melbourne from the Hume Freeway (M31) and we were recalling the approach from Ballarat on the M8??

We had to drive all the way to Craigieburn before we were treated (?) to a very hazy panorama of the city skyline. Just managed to snap a pic of the ‘Welcome to Melbourne’ sign as we flashed by at 110kph at 3.36pm!

Arriving in Craigieburn marked the end of the Freeway and the beginning of the Craigieburn Bypass which took us past Epping and Thomastown in peak hour traffic. Our timing was bad for arriving back in the city but, with it still being school holidays, we were spared ‘true’ peak hour which enabled us to make it home by just after 4.00pm with another road trip in the MU-X under our belts.

We will be at home for just six weeks before we pack up again for our EPIC road trip across the Nullarbor to explore the south-west of WA.



Steps: 9,651 (6.49kms)

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