The Trip starts here...

The plan is to head as far west as horsham (simply 'cos I used to live there in a town with the same name in the UK), then south to the coast and back along the Great Ocean Road. We'll pop into Melbourne before heading up into the Snowy Mountains and then back to Sydney. The trip will take two weeks if all goes according to plan.

Today we drove from Sydney out to Wagga Wagga. On the way we passed through Bowral on Hume's Highway, where Sir Donald Bradman begun his cricketing career and stopped off in Yass to Visit Hume's house, called Cooma Cottage.

Hamilton Hume an Aussie and William Hovell (a POM, or Prisoner Of the Motherland) were famous for major expeditions to discover more of the country. All 370km of their most famous in 1824, from around Yass to Albury can still be walked (if you really want to). The modern day Hume's Highway closely follows the route taken by the explorers.

Cooma Cottage.

Picture of an old-fasioned plough lying in a field just away from the cottage.

After Yass, the most famous place that we stopped off in was Gundagai. "Gunda-where?", I hear you ask. Gundagai is famous for its dog. The dog that in a 19th century bush ballard (and a poem by Jack Moses) sat by on its master's tuckerbox generally not doing very much helpfull while he was trying to get his bullock team out of a bog. There is a version of the story that he was even worse than useless in that he shat (poo) in rather than sat on the tucker (lunch) box.

Bluey sitting (or straining) on the tucker box.

Click on picture to see full image.

We stayed at a lovely little camp site in Wagga Wagga (picture of Wagga main street) later that afternoon. Derived from the aborginal for 'place of many crows', it's a sweet little country town. The camp site is right on the edge of the Murrumbidgee River that runs through the town. a very peaceful location and a perfect start to the holiday that was finished off nicely by the tomato pasta that I cooked up tasting really quite nice (even if I do say so myself!).

Wagga Wagga being sweet.

To tomorrow