Day 12: Saturday, February 16, 2002
Driving southeast Victoria

Overtaking Lane sign in SE Victoria

Today was mainly a driving day, not that much of interest. We started at Eden, in the far southeastern part of the country and we were headed west to Foster, a town not far from Wilson's Promontory, just southeast of Melbourne, about 500 km along the Prince's Highway. There aren't many towns along that way, let alone towns of note, so mostly we just drove. All of it is a 2-lane highway, but it was pretty easy driving because there weren't many cars and it seemed liked any time we came up on one, there would be a passing lane. (They call them overtaking lanes.)

Ellen driving from right side of car

The signs are very good about telling you how long till the next passing lane, and then they give you good warning just before they start, and then as soon as one ends, it usually tells you when the next one is. Very nice.

The terrain along here was much more wooded than what we'd been seeing. Mostly we saw trees by the side of the road, and occasionally it would open up to open up to fairly flat pastures with cows. Not all that interesting. About an hour or so after driving, we crossed into Victoria. We'd been in New South Wales, Queenstown, and ACT, so this was our fourth (and last) state. Victoria looked pretty much the same except there weren't as many passing lanes.

Picnic lunch in the car

We had hoped to grab some breakfast at one of the tiny towns along the way but they were so tiny it didn't make sense to stop. So we started looking forward to Orbost, which looked bigger. We rolled in around 11am or so and didn't find anything that appealing at the bakery (every town has one), so we decided to go to the grocery store and pick up some cheese and crackers. Walendo had really liked the snack he'd had on the plane, of all places, which was crackers, cheese, salami and sweet gerkins, so he wanted to replicate it. I just wanted more tea crackers. We found everything we needed and then sat in the car eating our treasures. Everything was delicious. Once we'd had our fill, we moved on.

Lunch place in Lakes Entrance

It had started out a sunny day but as we'd been heading west it became cloudy and rained sporadically. It was drizzly when we got into Orbost and then clearned up a bit after we left. After another 30 minutes or so, we came to the big town along that stretch called Lakes Entrance. It's a summer lake town where people come with their boats (we passed a bunch on the road). Not all that pretty, but we stopped to have a real lunch. We quickly found a bakery with nice looking sandwiches so we ate there. I had a veggie sandwich (it was okay) and Walendo had a chicken cutlet sandwich that he liked a lot. The place was hopping.

Lakes Entrance street (with ice cream parlor)

We walked along just to check out the town, and of course I stopped to have my chocolate ice cream cone at the Riviera Ice Cream Parlor. This one was probably the best one I've had yet. Very creamy. Then we came across a discount shoe store. I'd been looking to replace my broken Tevas and they had some outside in the bins for a whopping AU$10 (US$5). While I tried some on, Walendo went off to check out the music store (still looking for that Hangover Cure #1 CD). They had my size, so I figured I'd get them. Even if they're cheap, you can't go wrong for $5. When I went in the store, I saw some more so I tried those as well. The man who owned the store chatted with me a bit and I could tell he was a bit of a character. Walendo came in to join me (no luck with the CD) and we got into a long conversation with the man. He was quite the chatter, but pretty interesting. He wondered why there weren't more American tourists, since the dollar is so strong against the Australian dollar. I told him that many people in the US are more oriented toward Europe, where the dollar is strong as well, plus it's much more expensive to fly here (and takes a lot longer, especially from the east coast). He accepted those reasons, but still returned to the idea that there should be more Americans. (I wondered how many would show up in Lakes Entrance, not really a major tourist attraction.) We also discussed the GST (Goods and Services Tax), which they started two years ago in July. He said he liked that customers knew exactly how much they had to pay rather than having to add on tax, though he accepted that it is easier to raise taxes this way. He said that he'd ended up absorbing some of the tax since the GST started because he just couldn't raise his prices that much with all the competition.

I was impressed by how much he knew about the States. He knew how many people are in the US (about 280 million, compared with 19-20 million in Australia), and he asked us if we liked not having to tip. He also wondered if we had been fooled by how far away everything is, thinking that we could cover more ground looking at the map. (That hadn't really happened to us, since I was pretty careful about checking out distances.) Somehow we got onto the topic of kangaroos on the road and how he didn't like to drive at night along the Prince's Highway cuz he was always worried about hitting one and damaging his car. He assured us that if we hit a kangaroo, there would be damage to the car. We both found it amusing to talk with him and were glad we'd run into him. He was such a talker that it became a little hard to leave (we'd move a little closer to the door, then we'd get on a new topic and talk for a while, then move a little, and so on), until finally we just said goodbye.

Deserted street in Sale

On we drove until we came to the town of Sale. Yep, that's the name. And sure enough, they do have sales there. We started to drive right through it without stopping, but Walendo wanted to see if they had that CD in this town. So I turned around and right away we saw a whole line of people walking along a field with German Shepherds on leashes. Wow! They were doing some sort of dog training. We figured it was Libby sending us a mental hug. We stopped to get a picture (though not fast enough to get them coming our way), and then moved on. We found a street with a music store, which seemed to be the only store open. It was Saturday, so that seemed odd. In any case, they had the CD so we got it. (The guy said they were in the pile of CDs to send back cuz they weren't selling. I guess it's not too popular.) We also got a cheapie hits of the 90s CDs. I asked for the nearest bathroom and he pointed us to the town mall within walking distance. There was a wide brick street with stores lining it, but all of them were closed as well. At the end of that, was a mall, which is where everything was happening. The stores were all open and there were lots of people about. I guess this is one of those towns where the mall took over. Walendo ended up getting a cheap t-shirt and then we headed back to the car.

Walendo in our room in the Foster Hotel

It was only a short way to Foster from there. We listened to the music we'd just bought and were disappointed that the Hangover Cure either wasn't as good as we remembered or it wasn't the right one. The 90s hits seemed to be compiled on another planet where they had different hits than the ones we'd heard in the last decade. Oh well. We arrived around 5pm, about 8 hours after we'd left (with stops). We found the hotel that we'd booked (Fosters Hotel) and checked in (AU$88 per night). We have a big room with three beds in it, which is nice cuz we've got a lot of stuff, but it's kind of old fashioned. It even has a rotary phone! But there was a fridge and a container of milk in it for our tea, so Walendo found it charming. (It's nice that even the cheap hotels have fridges, although not hair dryers.) As always, the woman at the desk was very friendly and helpful.

Street in Foster with laundry & Internet

We drove into town and did a load of laundry (we'd seen the laundromat when we had driven through town earlier) and checked mail at the pizza joint that had a dialup computer. I needed to transfer money to pay our credit card bill, but they didn't have a secure browser so I couldn't do it. Damn, we'll have to find another way. After that, we walked through the town (which took about 10 minutes), and then made our way to the local bar, where they served food. It turned out to be the hopping place. There was a big room of tables and an area where you walk up to order your food.

Local Foster restaurant and pub

Then you go to another window to order drinks. The other side of the bar opened to a big room (the pub part) and the whole place was hopping. Harness racing was on the big screen TV. It was a good local scene. We both got fish specials and the food was great. Good solid cooking (though too much food, in my opinion). I'd ordered the heavenly chocolate dessert, which was AU$9 (US$4.50, very expensive for here) and it turned out to be several chocolate desserts in one — cake, mouse, and strawberries in a chocolate dish, all with various sauces. The cake especially was yummy. I was plenty full when we left.

Before heading back to the room we went to the supermarket to pick up some stuff for tomorrow's hike. We decided to get some milk and bowls so we can have breakfast cereal in the morning in our room. (We had bought cereal earlier.) Twice now we've not had a chance to have a breakfast, so this solves the problem.

We came back to the room and spent time working out our plan for the New Zealand part of the trip, figuring out if we needed to book anything in advance. We realized we should try to book two things, which we'll try tomorrow. Both Walendo and I finished our books that night, so he's going to start reading mine (Prodigal Summer) since I liked it a lot, and I've got a new one about Melbourne during the 1880s gold rush, called The Guilded Cage by Marshall Browne.

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