Australia Holiday - Inverloch to Melbourne

From the Ocean to the Airport - 14th November

After all the wonderful, sometimes quirky, places we stayed it was somehow appropriate that we should end our trip in a concrete cell. Plain white sheets, white walls and a swipe card for entry. We were at the Melbourne Airport Ibis Budget.(A$114/night) - clean and convenient.

Inverloch Surf Beach

Earlier in the day we had stopped at the Inverloch Surf Beach and then headed back towards the City. Our lunch stop was a Cafe in Baxter from where we carried on into suburbia before joining the bayside coast at Frankston. We had a look at the beach which was OK but we had been well and truly spoiled by the Prom and Inverloch. A very helpful Lady at the Tourist Office copied a map of the Airport and of Moorabbin where we were going to visit an old colleague. We drifted slowly up the coast with plenty of time to spare and took the Beach Road, the famous weekend cycle route. Blackrock and Sandringham were stop off points along the way. Parking in the beachside car parks was very expensive. In the town of Brighton, much nicer than the one in UK, we stopped to buy flowers for the people we were visiting. The Florist was a bit depressed about Australia, reckoned greedy unions were strangling the economy. Possibly they are but Brighton looked pretty prosperous to us, perhaps the Union Leaders live there? Lots of small individual shops like the Butcher and Baker, unlike the UK of today. Anyway we had a date in Moorabbin which we found easily although our route was pretty circuitous and took us through some smart suburban streets.

The P's house was a lovely wooden structure with big open plan Kitchen Diner.

They had prepared dinner for us, a cottage pie to die for, which was a nice surprise. With three kids, two dogs, a cat and the Aussie Lifestyle they were doing very well.

Beach Huts at Brighton

Our last drive in Australia was to the Airport and in darkness but we were given good instructions and followed them North, straight through the City. Impressive infrastructure and good views of the skyline along the way. I think we used a toll road along the way which has to be paid in the same way as London's congestion charge. We did get slightly stressed when we got stuck in a traffic jam because the Hotel had told us we had to check in by 10 pm or we might lose the room. Melbourne Airport is not the easiest of places to drive around but we found our Hotel, signposted as a Formula 1, in good time and decided to return Yaris 3 early. That meant filling the tank at the BP station. Luckily TW was alert to the fact that if we went out the wrong exit we would end up back on the Freeway and return to Melbourne City - aagh. Fortunately we went out the right way, found Hertz and said cheerio to our little Yaris 3. They were quite jolly at Hertz so we were happy it would be looked after. Not sure what they thought about the Koala in the boot. Sorry, we obviously could not take it to NZ, there are not enough Eucalyptus trees.

Always a bit of a relief to get the cars back unscathed. The Rental Companies all try and sell add-ons like CDW and Roadside Assistance and we do not take any of them. We do have our own Annual Policy that is much cheaper but it would no doubt be a struggle to sort out any claims.