Time to leave Melbourne. I don’t feel like navigating the motorways so I try a different route to the Hume Highway from the hotel. Across St Kilda Road to High Street and a left turn up Punt Road, through South Yarra to Clifton Hill, where I learned to swim. A slightly wrong turn sees me turn on to St Georges Road and up to Lalor and Epping, where I turn left and finally join the Hume.
It’s nice to explore suburban Melbourne, drive along the team tracks, see the Skyrail construction, the Nylex sign. Luxury homes and outer suburbs.
I had a rotten sleep last night, so when we pull over at a rest stop to use the bathroom B takes over the driving until we cross the Victorian border at Albury-Wodonga.
It is late and Gami, the Korean restaurant we wanted to try in Albury, is almost closing. Alex has bulgogi, B eat garlic and soy chicken wings and I have a chicken bowl with salad. It’s okay, if a bit too much food.
Wandering through the Albury Myer I am so tempted to buy some Star Wars Lego. Can’t think why…
We purchase some more jelly slices from the Beechworth Bakery there and I drive us out of Albury before pulling over at another rest stop to give Alex a turn to drive all the way to Gundagai.
I love this stretch of the Hume Highway. It’s scenic, usually fairly quiet and I can just listen to my music and go with the flow. No music today because Alex wants to focus and I have to supervise and I’m getting bored. This whole 120 hours thing is very annoying from a parental perspective, good as it is for the driver.
We reach South Gundagai after 5 pm and Alex raises B’s ire by turning into the motel too hard and making a bit of a thunk with the car’s underside. After checking in he wants to do more driving, so we explore a bit of Gundagai, but his turns are off, the roads are narrow and B eventually takes over.
Much of Gundagai has shut for the day, not that much is ever open anyway. We walk the main street. I want to have dinner at the reopened Niagara Cafe, but B wants the Criterion Hotel like last time. Alex has pasta, B a steak and I have a pork chop and coleslaw. Still a bit full from lunch, the other two can’t finish their meals. Lucky I had a smaller lunch served because my pork is really nice.
Then it’s back to the motel and a view of the sunset. I love the semi-solitude of the town, the rush of trucks racing past on the highway. I feel like we should be sitting in a diner, watching the world go past.
Instead we watch television inside our room. Alex giggles at Police Academy on television. He seems to be gaining a cultural appreciation of the eighties.
Tomorrow we head back to Sydney.