So it was time for another road trip. This time south and in the car as I will be picking up my fiance from south of Melbourne. As I am touring, it made sense to take the GT – a Grand Tourer of the old school, built in Europe and designed to cross continents with ease.
Day 1
An early start was needed as it was going to be a long drive. 6:00am seemed like a good time and I headed out to the freeway from home to beat the city bound traffic. That worked well although the traffic coming up from the south was very heavy at 6:30am. It was dark, cold and after an hour, drizzling rain that just misted up the windscreen – not real rain.
The plan was breakfast at the Paragon Cafe in Goulburn and after 2 hours on the freeway, the cafe was welcoming and quiet. That was the boring bit of the day done. No more freeway, only great country roads!
I left Goulburn and headed out towards Bungendore, passed Wakefield Park and the sun came out and the roads got progessively better. Soon after the track I came across the Royala Solar Farm, a bank of solar panels creating energy all day, every day! I was making good time with the traffic light and running at a good pace. From Bungendore, I carried on to Queanbeyan, my preferred way to get to Canberra without sitting on a freeway all day.
From Queanbeyan, the road loops down south to join the Monaro Highway which took me down to Cooma for a refuel – 400kms from home. Now the real fun starts!
The route took me down Jindabyne Road passed one of the Snowy Mountain Hydro lakes onto the Alpine Way, which has to be one of my favourite roads in Australia. By now the sun was out and the temperature at around 20C and the scenery was simply stunning. I started to stretch the cars engine a tad and it was a great run through to Thredbo.
The landscape here is just what a great GT needs – they used to call this area the Australian Alps, so maybe the car felt at home!
We’re nice and high up here as you can see and all the road markings are yellow not white as in winter this is covered in snow. There are red snow sticks to tell you where the road is! I put both windows down to get the fresh air and to listen to my V8 bouncing through the park. Bliss.
There was a little traffic, so the going was good and I got into a groove through the hundreds of connected corners! As you come down off the mountain, the Autumn vista was stunning, Khancoban looked great.
Corryong was busy, this weekend is their annual Man From Snowy River Festival, so there were horses everywhere and the town centre blocked off. From here it was a straight cruise down the Murray Valley Highway until I turned off for Yackandandah and then on to the Motel on Alpine in Myrtleford for the night.
All up around 800kms and a great run – I must have picked up some bugs along the way as when I finally stopped, a swarm of wasps descended to have a feast!
Tomorrow is another great driving day – over Mount Hotham to Bairnsdale and on to Red Hill south of Melbourne.
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