Back in Victoria

For one long stretch of highway in the outback, this is the only hill I saw, and it is a man-made hill in the middle of nowhere to cross the railway tracks from the post: Beginning The Long Drive Back.

Foggy morning entering my home state, Victoria.

I forget who passed who...

The Grampian Mountains which I will visit in the coming months. Apparently a great area for hiking.

Sunday, April 10^th.

I got up early and started out by 8:00 in a thick fog. Traffic was light and within a half hour I reached the Victoria border. From there it was a full day of driving with not too much different to check out.

As I was driving all this week one thing became clear to me as a distinct difference between Canada and Australia when it comes to driving safely. In Canada the focus over the last few years has been on distracted drivers, using cellphones and other devices. In Australia however, I have not seen any attention paid to that issue. But they must have lots of statistics about drivers falling asleep and crashing, because I saw hundreds of signs about the perils of driving tired: You Can't Fight Sleep, Drowsy Drivers Die, A Power Nap Could Save Your Life, Micro Sleep Can Kill in a Second, Fatigue is Fatal, Drive to Survive, Tired? Power Nap Now! (which begs the question: can I pull over first?) and others I can't remember. And there were also hundreds of pull off the road rest stops for travelers and Road Train drivers, some with washrooms and a couple with free coffee! I also saw a number of large signs that said “High there? Drug Impaired Driving Stops Here”. I saw a TV show about the effort that South Australia is putting in to catching drug impaired drivers. They have road side testing stations and the penalties are stiff.

I arrived back in Chelsea by 5:00 and immediately did my laundry and then went to Woolworth's for lunch and food supplies for the week. I spent the evening relaxing, catching up on the typing and reflecting on two very successful road trips. I made the most of my two week break and thoroughly enjoyed the sights and activities.

The price of regular unleaded petrol in Melbourne fluctuates between 104 and 114 per litre, but in the outback I paid up to 169 per litre. 

A total of 487 kms of driving today.

Interesting facts:

I just calculated the total number of kilometres I drove in the two week holidays and it was 8570. To drive to Vancouver from Toronto is 4376 kilometres, so I drove the equivalent of Toronto to Vancouver and almost all the way back again. OR, I just calculated this: from Vancouver to Halifax, and then from Halifax to Toronto is 7959 kms. So I would still have enough kilometres left to drive to the cottage and back! Pretty crazy! Maybe I'll try that when I get home!