kiwibird: Nhill Revisited

Here we are, back in Nhill, on the Melbourne to Adelaide highway. The town with the highway that runs through the centre of it. Plus the toilets, that used to play classical music. The town where the locals always ask 'How's your morning been?'. And the lovely Vietnamese cafe which has excellent coffee, plus a huge array of delicious cakes on display.

The local Council run caravan park which is one of the best we have seen, with its recently refurbished ablution block that has heat lamps over the shower cubicles.

Plus the lovely park next door, and the lake and board walk.

A place worth stopping at for a rest.

I also forgot to say that the caravan park in Shepparton had fluffy bath mats in each shower cubicle, the first ever, however even that cannot beat the heat lamps here.

Yesterday, we set off reasonably early, from Shepparton, intending to follow the route that we used to take from Adelaide to Benalla. A bit of a zig zag route. We followed the road map instead of Google maps which wanted to take us on a different route. No doubt there was a shorter way.

At one point we did check our spot on Google maps just to make sure we were heading in the right direction. Lack of confidence!

It appeared from the sign posts that all roads lead to Echuca. Not a place we want to return to yet.

So we travelled through Corop, Elmore, Bendigo, Charlton, Donald, Warracknabeal, Dimboola and finally reached out destination in Nhill.

The roads were deplorable, with many potholes, but the worst road was one that was corrugated, even though it was sealed, which reminded us of being on the Oodnadatta track. Also there were road works everywhere. Well at least there was an attempt to fix the roads.

It took nearly eight hours!

The stop for morning coffee was lengthy due to the delay in our coffee arriving at the table. The milk had been over heated so the gentle sips took ages. A very friendly little settlement though. The kind man in the shop next to the coffee filled up a bowl of water for Piper.

Piper had a little sleep while we took our small sips of coffee.

Now I cannot remember where I took the following photographs.

A very old country service station!

A sad looking deserted shop.

This town had a most picturesque church, with murals painted on the front of it.

We stopped for lunch, and then for an ice cream, the trip seemed to go on forever.

When we arrived here, it started to rain. Always the way.

All the items in the cupboards were everywhere, the drawers were out, and one of the turnbuckles on the side of my bedroom had come off. Signs of rough roads.

Today the rain cleared and the sun came out, and the world looked beautiful again.

The ornate lead lighting above the pharmacy door.

Morning coffee was at the Vietnamese bakery, together with a pastry of course. Then we bought some cherry filled small cakes to take back with us. Plus two oversized bread rolls. So delicious.