travelling allrite

On the last days of winter, Canberra blooms with the yellow of wattle and the pink and white of cherry blossoms. Public servants and consultants dressed in black scuttle past having bought their morning coffees and now heading off to work. I sit in a Max Brenner drinking thick hot chocolate to ward off the chill before driving home to my own distant office. I have met my team for the first time in at least five years, members flying up from Melbourne, down from Brisbane and driving, like me, from Sydney to visit the largest group of us in Canberra. It is good to see some again and meet others for the first time. The drive from Sydney is mostly unremarkable, traffic thinning out as I leave the city. My only stop is by Lake George, to briefly marvel at the flat fullness of the water before continuing on. I could have flown, but travel policy means taking the cheapest fares and that is on a Link Airways Saab 340 turboprop. If I was to fly I want a little luxury and not run the...

We're home now. The last two days of our Brisbane trip involved a lot of driving but not always much movement. On Wednesday we arranged to met Sis and her family at Robina Town Centre, a massive shopping mall. That meant a drive down towards the Gold Coast along the same motorway we'd driven up along. What should have taken an hour took twice that due to the holiday traffic along the 3 and 4 lane road. Lots of people taking the turn-offs to three of the "Worlds" (Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and Dreamworld).  The Town Centre hosts Artvo , a trick photography gallery where you use perspectives to make subjects look like they are part of the artwork. It was surprisingly fun, despite the aversion of we males to being the subjects of photos. Afterwards we had a long chat over lunch, which was sourced from a variety of eateries. I had roti and chicken curry from Roti and Buns . Passable, though the curry was more laksa like. We later took Sis to Daiso and she and her h...

It's Christmas Day. We are celebrating it alone as a family, the presents were opened yesterday, our lunch was leftovers turned into a salad and our dinner was Hungry Jacks. But the tiny Christmas tree from home sits on the hotel room desk, wrapped with colourful battery powered lights. There's pudding and custard, cherries and mangoes, plus lots of chocolate. And we are on holidays! Outside the hotel room window is a view of the Brisbane River, with bridges and buildings on the Southbank lit up in Christmas colours. There were crowds of people admiring the tree and lights out the front of the Brisbane Town Hall. I expected the city to be dead on Christmas night, but no, it's buzzing. I'm exhausted after the drive north. I had a rough sleep, dreamed I was flying and swimming in the South Pacific. Then I cracked a molar while eating Christmas cake! This is totally unfair because I just had a lower molar repaired earlier in the week. Th...

A relative's wedding right in the middle of the spring school holidays ruined our chances for a decent break away. This was especially disappointing after being stuck at home with covid last holidays. All we could manage was three nights up at Nelson Bay to escape from a house that is also the office. I am not a fan of the drive north out of Sydney to Newcastle. Too many lane changing, tailgating idiots with massive utes or luxury cars and a route that demands that you are in the correct lane without sufficient warning. So it was this time. The Monday night wedding left us exhausted and we departed quite late in the day. We made it to the Morriset turnoff for a lunch of KFC, then through to the nightmare of Hexam, before turning off at Tomago, thus breaking with our last few drives north. The traffic in the opposite direction was horrendous, jams stretching for kilometres. I had already planned to take a different route home. I was very glad to finally reach our accommodation, the ...

Dong. Dong. Dong. And four more. St Paul's Church across the road provides a Sunday morning wake up alarm whether we like it or not. For me, not. I had a headachy night with weird dreams. First thing I do when I get up is take a covid rapid antigen test (negative). Eight chimes and then a celebratory carillon performance.  I walk across to K-mart and Coles to buy some supplies for nights indoors on our holiday.  It is quite late and we'll past breakfast when we head out down to the country town of Beechworth. It is nice to be off the motorway, driving through the hills, archways of trees above us, autumn colour around. The Beechworth Bakery is full of tourists as we eat meat pies for brunch, pastries for treats and take away jelly slices and pink lamingtons for a later dessert. I buy more cordials and local vegetables for the trip, but we have had enough of quirky shops yesterday. The motorway to Melbourne is too familiar and boring, but not as stressfu...

The Hume Highway is far too familiar now. After Jetstar cancelled our Easter school holiday flights to Japan (the country has not yet reopened to tourists) we eventually chose just to drive south.  For the third time this year, under grey showery skies, I drive the Mazda 6 down along the M5 and on to the Hume Motorway. Traffic isn't too bad, but I welcome the emptier roads after most turn off down the Federal Highway. We break our journey at Jugiong, the quiet little town by the Murrumbidgee. Lunch is some very nice toasted sandwiches at the Long Pantry. We don't stop again until we reach the day's terminus of Albury. Despite a fresh lick of pain and some new furniture, the Commodore Motel is disappointing, little like its Mount Gambier namesake. The one saving grace is its proximity to the main street of the town.  I rather like Albury. B spent a year at university here and I was a frequent visitor. Much has changed since then, but the main street r...

After a good night's sleep it is time to head back to Sydney and home. It's already a quarter to ten by the time I exit the hotel and carpark. I set the music to John Williams' complete score to the original three Star Wars movies.  Being a Sunday, the traffic is relatively light and not in a rush and I don't have to stress too much about navigating my way along the motorways out of the city. I'm glad I chose to drive rather than fly. As I head past the airport the wind is ferocious, buffeting the car. It would be a rough flight. The car needs petrol, but I skip past the first few service stations until, an hour and a half later, I arrive at Avenel. On the way down I'd spotted hand painted roadside signs advertising smallgoods and a mysterious "bacon jam", so I thought I'd take a look on my return. I bought a jar of the bacon jam, a savoury spread, from the roadside stall near the service station and grabbed  some hot items for a brunch. A "sw...