Princes Highway southbound

Decided not to take the camper trailer as we thought that we might make the 960km trip in one day's travelling. Dropped Tia off to kennels soon after 8am and continued down the coast through Batemans Bay, Moruya and by lunchtime we were in Eden. Eden was once a whaling and fishing town and is now known for it's fishing, timber milling and it's scenic beauty. Soon found ourselves crossing the border from NSW into Victoria past some spectacular beaches. The Princes Highway follows the coastline as near as practical but we went through some beautiful forested bush areas too.

We passed Mallacoota, Orbost and Lakes Entrance with the Alpine Ranges way off to the north west of us which are being ravaged by out of control bushfires. As we travelled through the bush we saw the beginnings of a pall of smoke and tuned our radio to the local station to pick up reports of Victoria's worsening fires and it was now apparent that an arm of one of the larger fires would be very close to our route.

Many Country Fire Authority (CFA) Bushfire vehicles were travelling in convoy along the highway with us and warning signs of "Smoke over the road" were positioned along our route. Mid afternoon the sky turned mauve, then purple then black up ahead of us and the erie light of bushfire smoke hung over the top of us.

We were in Dandenong by about 7pm and only had about 45 kms to our destination so stopped for dinner at a chain restaurant - La Porchetta which serves very good Italian style food for the budget conscious that prefer not to go to a hamburger or fried chicken outlet. Made it into Andrew's relatives house by 9pm and caught up with the family plus two of Andrew's daughters who will also be staying there.