Turton Track, huge trees, pancakes and miles to go before we sleep!

April 9 - 13th
Mike's ancestors have obviously been here us as just up the road from Gwyn and Di's house at Tanybryn, is a small road named "Turton's track". Very much a single track road, it has been metalled since our last visit and is a now a recognised (if rather slow and twisty) route. So far we've failed to find any of it's history so if any readers can shed light, we'd be pleased to hear!

The scale of everything in Australia is immense. In this area of Victoria, there are lots and lots of trees, many of them huge. Went for a walk around "Maits Rest" where there are hundreds of huge trees, many of them Myrtle Beech. Photos don't really give a true sense of scale or the beauty of the flora and fauna.

These can grow up to 100 metres high and some are up to 400 years old

Gives some sense of scale

Very Lord of the Rings!

When planning our travels, we're often caught out by the vast distances and time taken to drive them. We drove from Melbourne to Adelaide this week. Nearly 800 kilometres and took about three days with stops. Much of the journey was across vast areas of flat plain. Mike has dubbed these roads the "pancakes" because they are very brown and arid and boring as there's little of interest (and have no maple syrup on them!) Pretty boring driving but one of us has to be on "Roo alert" as kangaroos and various other wildlife have a habit of running out into the road when least expected. Unfortunately we've seen many more dead Kangaroos by the road side than live ones. However this week we have seen dolphins (by the ferry), kangaroos, wallabies, Emu's and some fabulously coloured parrots. Cockatoos are everywhere and certainly make their presence felt. They are very noisy! Less welcome was our close encounter with a Tiger snake. Luckily it slithered away quickly.

Tiger snake. Poisonous of course!

Emu strutting his stuff

Parrots waiting for breakfast at Gwyn's. The male ones have the red breasts