Saturday started as Friday had finished, mother nature had unleashed herself overnight with howling winds and rain scrawls lashing most of Victoria, the temperature reflected the conditions and the time of year and we were grateful to be indoors. We’d soon packed up, the local tv news highlighted some the damage from the overnight winds. We headed into the centre of St Arnaud for a look around before continuing our travels across central Victoria. The coldness ensured we didn’t get out of the car too often. Occasionally we would stop to find a geocache, only to regret getting out of the car. By lunchtime we’d reached Bendigo, the warmth of the day had slightly improved and we took some time to look around. We’d been to Bendigo on a number of occasions but marvelled at the old tourist tram and old buildings which litter the Main Street. Just north of town in Huntly is one of the best pie shops we’ve found and the timing was perfect to once again feast on what they had to offer. Pushing on, we had a look through the large rural township of Shepparton before heading to Benalla for the night, where we spent another lazy night indoors.
Our penultimate day, Sunday started at slow pace as we needed to be in Beechworth for 12pm, so we spent to first couple of hours geocaching around Benalla and Wangaratta before making our way across to Beechworth. The alpine areas directly ahead of us still had blizzard warnings in place and as such there was no views of the snow capped mountains of Victoria. Just before lunch we found ourselves in Beechworth which was perfect timing to allow us to feast on the yummy pies from the famous bakery. We did a bit of sightseeing before making our way around to the Billsons Brewery which had the girls in our family delighted. Spoilt for choice and offering many flavours that aren’t in the shops yet we walked out with an ample supply of the products…. Back on the road and continuing northwards we soon crossed the border, back into NSW and the realisation that our holiday was quickly coming to an end. Heading north to Wagga we’d decided to spend our last days catching up with friends. By late afternoon we were catching up with geocaching friends for coffee and we had dinner with an SES friend who’s currently in Wagga for work.
Monday was a similar story to the previous day, we only had a few hours drive to be home but spent most of the day stopping off to catch up with friends. By lunchtime we’d made it to the SES office at Goulburn where we had lunch and shared the tales of our trip with our good friend Macca. The final leg of our journey home was uneventful and sadly our seven and half week holiday was done. We’d seen so much of remote Australia it’s hard to pick a highlight. We’ve ticked off a number of bucket list items and done it with some great friends. We truly do live in a beautiful country.
Trip summary
Total km’s - 17308km
Longest distance in one day - 972km
Shortest distance in one day - 92km
Most expensive fuel - $3.70/ltr
Cheapest fuel - $1.83/ltr
Total fuel for trip - 2215ltr
Fuel cost - approx $5k
Max fuel carried when full - 187ltr
Max water carried - 120ltr drinking water
Total number of nights - 52
Total number of nights in swag - 44
Number of nights under the stars (free camping) - 20
Most expensive campsite - $73
Number of time zones - 3
Number of States - 6
Number of State Corners - 3
Remotest town visited - Punma or Wingellina
Furthest point from home - Carnarvon
Most northern point from home - Broome
Most Southern point from home - Penola
Most Western point from home - Steep Point
Best place we stayed - Karajini NP
Worst place we stayed - Roadside quarry (eatin by midgies)
Number of window screen chips - 3
Number of tyres destroyed - 1
Lowest temperature - minus 1
Highest temperature - 38
Number of Deserts crossed - 5
Bucket list items completed - 5
Number of Corrugations - 1,946,761
Average fuel consumption - 13.7ltr/100km
Number of flies swallowed - 6
Vehicle damage - Battery, Tyre, Front hub, Windscreen, Solar panel, countless scratches
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