Today was a big travel day with 550kms from Orbost through to Bendigo. It wouldn’t be too bad except that there was only one route to get there and that involved skirting through Melbourne and its traffic.
The Princes Highway was good doing until I hit Narre Warren and the traffic started to build up and slow down. Roadworks didn’t help much. It took a while to get round to the Metropolitan Ring Road and just as I reached the Calder Highway exit the traffic stopped. It was OK though as I was headed to the Calder Highway.
It was certainly different when travelling through Morwell. Last time I was here you couldn’t see for smoke. I was here fighting the coal mine fire in February 2014 – it doesn’t seem that long ago. The fire went for a month and cost somewhere around $1 million a day to fight, with helicopters, ground crews and lots of different fire appliances from all around Australia. Today, the power station is closed and the only activity in the pit seemed to be remediation work. Oh and the air was clear.
There was one little “oh wow” moment when I took the Alternative Calder Highway exit and what looked to be a stick in the middle of the road was a 1.5m snake. I tried to miss it and didn’t see it come out the back. Hopefully he is not coiled up somewhere under the car or van.
Onward to Mildura tomorrow.
