Friday, September 16, 2016

Wodonga to Benalla

As we drove down the highway we checked out some of the towns that were bypassed. One town called Holbrook was interesting. It was originally called Germanton, but during the war it got changed. They chose Holbrook  in honour of Lt. Norman Douglas Holbrook, a decorated wartime submarine captain and winner of the Victoria Cross
There is now a submarine half buried in a park and other submarine memorabilia in a little museum. It is quite amazing to see how big the submarine is when you walk all around it.


We called into the Albury Wodonga RV World at Wodonga, where we had got good service from earlier on in the year, unlike the Avan Superstore back in Melbourne. (Hopeless!!)
We had a wander around the new caravans and motorhomes in the show room. This one caught our eye - a deck at the back of the caravan!!
It all folded up into the back of the caravan. They still didn't have a new Avan Applause to check out - you have to wait up to six months if you want a new one!
We stopped overnight at Lake Hume and got a spot right by the water. 


We went for a lovely walk around the lake in the morning, and passed lots of runners and walkers on the way. After that we packed up and decided to head for Benalla via Yackandandah and Beechworth.  
They were both lovely old towns. We checked out the bakery at Beechworth but it was crazy busy, so we found a little takeaway and enjoyed some delicious potato cakes and dim sims, before the last part to Benalla.
Benalla used to welcome campers at an area by the lake, just near the shops. We had stayed there once before and it was really nice. The council had stopped people using that area and we decided not to push the friendship, so we went to a place called Thoona, where you could stop behind the pub. It wasn't that far up the road. As we drove along Randall suggested checking out another place just out of Benalla, and there were heaps of people stopped there. It was a chapter of the CMCA, so we said hello and then went to Thoona. Thoona was a bit disappointing, so around we turned and went back to our friends from the CMCA! They were very welcoming and friendly, and we enjoyed sitting by a nice big fire having a cuppa and later a wine and our tea.





The next morning we drove back into Benalla as I wanted to check out the Benalla museum. It has Ned Kelly's green sash there and as I had read about it in a children's book, I really wanted to see it.
I wasn''t disappointed. I can't believe I didn't know about this until I read the book to my classes.



From Benalla we drove off back to Melbourne to see our lovely girls and their families, and lots of Grandma and Pa cuddles from our two little grandsons.




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