Horsham - Warragul

Another cloudy, off and on rain day. The drive through was Melbourne made doubly scary by a bridge that seemed to think it appropriate to go over the moon followed by a tunnel that went equally deep, all the while escorted on all sides by huge trucks. All a very excrement inducing experience, believe me! 'Icy cool, I'm cool, breath deep' was my mantra. Having breezed through that we came to signage about a toll. Toll? A monster that hides under the bridge, right? Apparently not, but said signs were far to vague for a boy from Perth so, ignorance = bliss was the order of the day until we passed under what looked like 50 cameras, radar, x-ray and cat scan machines hanging over the road followed by another sign mentioning a $100 fine, but no clue as to how to atone for our sins. Hmmm. A nice lady at the next petrol station told me to get a day pass at the next Post Office and all would be forgiven. So I did, and I hope it will.

Warragul is a nice town, the first real one east of Melbourne not gobbled up by the expanding suburbia, about 105 km from the city centre. It is in a region called Gippsland. It's hilly and green, and is a big dairy centre. Gippsland runs from here over to about Bairnsdale and south to the coast. It is our current area of choice to make our retirement home in, so we are going to spend some time poking around here, tasting the towns, checking the roads for cycling, walking some of the walks, and finding out if it stacks up to what we found in our research. Advantages we see here over Perth include:
-Country living close to a city
-Cheap air fares and more flights
-Train to Melbourne
-Melbourne
-Ferry to Tasmania
-Proximity to good alpine walking
-Easier travel to Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane
-Melbourne Cricket Ground, home of Aussie rules footy and the grand final
-Cooler summers than most of Australia, mild winters
-new to us, exciting and different

We loved living in Perth but it is time for a change.