Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Sydney to Wagga and then onto Melbourne and Devonport

The 36 hours preceding our departure was not quite as smooth as it might have been.  The auxiliary battery on the FJ, the one that powers the ancillary equipment including the all important fridge did not seem to be getting charged.  Fortunately the friendly folks at Maroubra Auto Electrical Services found the year old Bosch battery was faulty and we were ready to depart in the nick of time.
Lorna accessing the on-board fridge.


As I grow older the idea of a non stop daytime drive to Melbourne followed by an overnight ferry crossing feels less and less appropriate so we went to the other extreme and decided on a daytime ferry crossing with a cabin at a fraction of the cost of  night crossing and cabin, with overnight stops in Melbourne and Devonport.  We also decided to take the opportunity to revisit Wagga, one of our favourite regional centres.

Stopping in Wagga gave us the chance to leave mid morning and avoid the traffic getting out of Sydney.

The weather was lovely for our drive and the insects paid a high price for our journey


We stayed at a newly established boutique hotel in Wagga run by Fox & Co, who have another property in Mudgee,   This lovely little hotel is a tasteful coversion of a Federation House and its outbuildings.  We loved and  highly recommend it and have decided to stop again on the way home.







Wagga is lovely at this time of year as you will see from the photos in our jAlbum click here to see them on line.

We ate that evening at a nice Thai restaurant Thaigga, pronounces tiger.

The next morning we explored Wagga again and were still really impressed with both the architecture and public gardens.






The next day we set out quite late for a gentle drive to Albury where we ate  astonishingly good gnochi for lunch at Mr Benedict's restaurant.

Then it was time to crack on to get to Melbourne for dinner with my lovely cousin Sarah and, her husband, Colin Bradley who took us for a wonderful exploration of the area around Crown Casino and hosted us for dinner at the really good  The Breslin Bar and Grill on the Left Bank, Southbank overlooking the Yarra River.  I am now researching options for the return match that Lorna and I will be hosting on our way back.  Anyone who has met Sarah & Colin knows what good company they are and we got back to the Radisson quite late.

Early next morning we boarded the Spirit of Tasmania for a horribly rough crossing I want to forget!
I am left wondering if pahoinvointi  is a design feature purposely included by the Finnish ship builders or maybe all Finns are such amazing merimies they don't notice wave motion.

For the photos look in the relevant jAlbum page at this link.

We were much relieved to arrive in Devonport. 



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