Day 241 - Guess which country we are in

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The photo probably gives it away, but what a strange sight first thing in the morning a flock / herd / pride / gaggle of kangaroos is (not sure of the collective noun here). The closest we’d come to kangaroos before this (apart from the zoo) was the stark and unambiguous warning sticker on the van’s dashboard (see photo).

We got going quite early and it was just like driving on a crisp spring day in Derbyshire. Not the Australian stereotype at all. We were heading to Melbourne and stopped in a town called Sale to seek the advice of the tourist office. They were extremely friendly and helpful and set the pattern for the rest of the tourist offices we went into. Australia does seem to just do everything well. Anyway they recommended a caravan park on the outskirts of Melbourne and we had to be almost rude in order to get away from tales of happy childhood holidays in that same caravan park 50 years ago.

In the caravan park we did some laundry and felt moderately as if we’d invaded ‘trailer-trash’ land. One woman had obviously lost her handbag which we worked out from a handwritten note pinned on the laundry room’s noticeboard. “To the low-life who stole my handbag, life’s a bitch and I can be a bitch too” it read. We added the apostrophe.

Dinner was a curry served by an Indian-looking young man but of course with an Aussie accent. Very off-putting. And overnight Gemma got bitten by insects, beginning a story that we could have done without…

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