{"id":604,"date":"2011-06-23T01:04:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T01:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=604"},"modified":"2013-04-04T00:10:50","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T00:10:50","slug":"from-the-capital-of-australia-to-llanelly-by-car","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=604","title":{"rendered":"From the capital of Australia to Llanelly, by car!"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/span><\/big><\/h1>\n

It\u2019s not as far as you may think.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I had some holiday due, starting on my birthday, and there was something I\u2019d wanted to do for a very long time, which was to visit Llanelly. <\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0My wife, being a kind and lovely woman, agreed to my madcap plan, as long as she could have a say in other matters pertaining to the trip, like accommodation and such, (to prevent me booking us into the grottiest places on the planet as; \u201cit\u2019s cheap,\u201d as is my wont,) so we agreed. We managed to borrow the mother-in-law\u2019s car for the trip as it has essential items, like air conditioning, a working engine, tires with tread on them and the like, and wasn\u2019t as likely to blow up four miles down the road as our two old bangers were. The mother in law also agreed to look after our two mutts for us, for which we were extremely grateful. <\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0So on <\/span>Thursday the fourth of Jan 2007<\/span>, with a car full of clothes and equipment, we set off.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Heading down the <\/span>Hume Highway<\/span>, the first thing that caught my eye, some 50 kilometres out of <\/span>Canberra<\/span>, was a huge sign inviting me to \u201cExperience Jugiong!\u201d This sounded rather exotic, and I wondered what \u201cJugiong\u201d involved, some form of oriental massage perhaps? I was rather disappointed when my wife informed me it was no more than a big lake you could water-ski on, ah well. <\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0A few hours down the road we came to the famous, well famous in these parts, \u201cDog on the Tuckerbox\u201d. This rather charming little roadside pull-in celebrates a famous (qualified as above) poem about a dog who sat on his masters\u2019 tuckerbox, five miles from Gundagai. Debate rages to this day on whether the dog merely sat on his masters\u2019 lunchbox, or in fact did something similar sounding, but a lot less appetising, on it. In any case they erected a statue to mark the event, and so many people came to see it that they set up a caf\u00e9 here. Unfortunately the caf\u00e9 is now out of business due to a big chain fast food outlet, (one with a Scottish sounding name,) opening up just down the road.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Onwards we went, passing the submarine HMAS Otway, a life size submarine reconstructed in the town of <\/span>Holbrooke<\/span>, which is 400 kilometres from the sea. I don\u2019t know why they did it, but it\u2019s certainly an arresting, if odd, sight.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0An hour or so down the road we came to the first of the \u201cFruit-fly Exclusion Zone\u201d signs, though how they teach the flies to read the signs I\u2019ve yet to determine. Next we passed through <\/span>Mooroopna, which proudly calls itself \u201cfruit salad city.\u201d<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0By this time I was seriously doubting the level of sanity in Australia, but, as my wife is an Aussie, I didn\u2019t voice this opinion. Just to raise my eyebrows a little further, we stopped for lunch at \u201cThe Big Ned Kelly\u201d.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0Oz has a tradition of erecting \u201cBig Things\u201d and this was one of them. There\u2019s also the \u201cBig Marino\u201d \u201cBig Prawn\u201d the \u201cBig Banana\u201d and loads of others. The 6 metre high statue of Ned brought my total of \u201cBig Things\u201d seen to, ermmm\u2026. three actually. Lots more to find then. Just to celebrate the event we had what must be the worse cup of tea I\u2019ve had in donkeys years at the \u201cLeaky Teapot\u201d caf\u00e9, which was behind Ned. I highly recommend you don\u2019t try the experience.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0At Elmore we entered the Australian Scouts Annual Jambouree. Our daughter was spending a fortnight there, along with 14,000 other scouts. We expected a load of dibbing and dobbing to be going on, along with the traditional \u201cstarting a fire using two twigs\u201d etc. But scouting has obvioulsy changed since my day, they didn\u2019t have girl scouts then for a start. But this was all high tech, with climbing walls, light aircraft flights, mudslides and all sorts of adventerous stuff going on constantly. <\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0They even had the \u201cRogue Traders\u201d at the opening night concert, coincedentally my kid\u2019s favourite band, so she was well pleased.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Sadly leaving her behind we drove onto the city of Bendigo, and our full days travelling was over, we\u2019d done some 620 k so far, lots more to come then!\u00a0 <\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0We got up early and explored Bendigo. It\u2019s a neat little city built on the wealth from gold mining, this still goes on in these parts. In the city centre there\u2019s a staue erected to the memory of the Cornish miners responsible for digging the gold, but not one for Welsh miners though, how strange. We took a look around the modern, but beautiful, cathederal, took a ride on the trams, then had a trip down a gold mine. The trip down the mine was interesting and informative, and an eye opener as to working conditions in days gone by. However we didn\u2019t find any gold. There was some gold in a seam on view, but it was behind plate glass, and my wife gave me a \u201clook\u201d when I got my screwdriver out, so I left it alone.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0So on we drove, and some forty kilometers down the road we came to \u2026.Llanelly\u2026 <\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0(You didn\u2019t think I was driving all the way home did you?)<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0So what can I tell you about Llanelly, Victoria? Not a lot really, there\u2019s not much there, (and don\u2019t call me Victoria!).<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0Llanelly is an isolated hamlet of about six houses, none of which could ever be described as a \u201cdes res\u201d. It\u2019s between a railway line and a small road (to Rheola believe it or not). The whole hamlet has been bypassed since a new road was built, and seems to have been in decline for years. It has a small shanty of a service station, a village hall that once was a school, a grain silo by the railway line, and a post box, and that\u2019s about it. <\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0I took photos of as much as I could, which consisted of about six photos, and wandered around the crossroads for a bit, looking bemused. As there was no one around, and no one had been sighted since we arrived, nor any car passed through, I considered knocking on the door of one of the houses and asking if anyone knew how the place got its adopted name. But the houses looked a bit too scary to me, and I couldn\u2019t get the \u201cduelling banjo\u2019s\u201d music out of my head. So we left.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Well for the rest of the holiday we went climbing in the Grampian mountains, toured the \u201cGreat Ocean Road\u201d and saw the \u201c12 apostles\u201d sea stacks, we went to Melbourne and watched the woeful one day match performace by England against Oz at the MCG,\u00a0 and toured the Lakes and Otway National parks.<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0But how could that compare to a trip to Llanelly?<\/span><\/big><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not as far as you may think. \u00a0 I had some holiday due, starting on my birthday, and there was something I\u2019d wanted to do for a very long time, which was to visit Llanelly. \u00a0My wife, being a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":760,"menu_order":17,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-604","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/604\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}