Full circle

South of Sydney the main highway sweeps inland, making a beeline for Canberra and Melbourne, taking the traffic and hubbub away from the coast. As ever, we chose instead to take the scenic route, following the coast toward the New South Wales - Victoria border. South from Batemans Bay seaside resort towns and rolling farmland gave way to eucalyptus forests and remote rugged beaches. At Ben Boyd National Park Banksia forest sat atop strikingly stratified cliffs eroded into mini-badlands.

On crossing the border we came upon Mallacoota, a peaceful fishing village on the banks of a large inlet. Here we camped by the water and though we were unable to hire a boat due to the wind, we explored the inlet on foot, bush-walking through gum forest and temperate rainforest.

Shortly after turning west for the final leg of our journey we came across the wide outlet of the Snowy River into the sea at tiny Marlo, awakening memories of our early days in Australia, at the source of the Snowy near the ski lodge in Guthega.

We stayed a couple of nights on a spit of land between the Gippsland Lakes and Ninety-Mile Beach, which really is 90 miles and utterly deserted at this time of year.

While we were there we spent a day giving Edna's paintwork a bit of attention (i.e. hiding the rust!), in preparation for sale in Melbourne. As we sanded and primed a kookaburra kept a close watch on our activities from a nearby branch. When we took a break for lunch in the back of the van the kookaburra continued to watch us through the open door from a few metres away. Amazingly, when Andy did an impression of a kookaburra laugh we had to dive for cover as the bird came swooping into the van! After a few confused moments of feathers and flailing, kookaburra retreated back to his branch, and we leapt to close the door behind him!

Later that day we had another animal encounter, finding this little beauty (about 10cm across) snuggled inside the front passenger side door. If any arachnophiles out there can identify him, let us know.

Further west along the coast we came to Wilson's Promontory National Park, better known locally as “The Prom”. This was the first place we had seen that was burnt in the devastating bush fires that wrought tragedy across Victoria in February. Three quarters of the peninsula encompassed by the National Park burned, though being uninhabited, there was little damage to property and no loss of life here.

The burnt browns and blacks leant a certain severity to the magnificent scenery of the Prom.

At the massive (though empty) camp-ground at Tidal River on the Prom, the wildlife seemed to have become pretty accustomed to humans. Hopeful rosella parrots hung around the picnic tables.

And at dusk the wombats were totally unfazed in their grass-munching by our camera flashes.

Jutting out into the Bass Strait, the Prom is famously subject to wet weather. Sure enough, a few hours after we arrived the clouds rolled in and we saw the sun no more. Despite the rain we climbed optimistically to the top of Mount Oberon, famed for it's 360-degree vista of the Prom, only to be rewarded (perhaps unsurprisingly) with intimate views of clouds.

After a couple of soggy days at the Prom, we headed for Philip Island, home of the Australian motorcycle Grand Prix circuit.

The weather on the island was also decidedly damp, with the addition of a ripping wind, which lent a certain fury to the waves crashing against The Nobbies headland in the island's southwest corner.

We just had to see some racing at the legendary Philip Island circuit so we bought weekend tickets for a round of the Shannons Nationals car racing championships, which includes Formula 3, GT3 and sports sedan races. The races were surprisingly competitive, given that the drivers are all amateur, and the stop-start rain showers certainly made things interesting. The fabulous thing about small race meetings at Phillip Island is that they let you drive right up to the track side. So while the racers were sliding around the track in pouring rain and gusting winds, we watched from the comfort and warmth of our own front seat, with the car radio tuned in to receive race commentary. Marvellous.

A visit to the Phillip Island Historical Museum between races proved worthwhile. Sepia photographs lining the walls captured the days when the Philip Island circuit consisted of a quadrangle of unsealed roads in the island's centre. Nestled among other motorabilia gems was this pair of ultra-rare, handmade, late 1980s Honda VFR750 RC30s. Amazingly both had fewer than 10km on the clock!

From Philip Island it was a 90 minute drive on the motorway to Melbourne, thus we completed our 22,000km lap of Terra Australis. We were warmly greeted back at Gill and Rob's place in Ivanhoe. Just 20 minutes after we listed Edna on the Trading Post website we had a phone call from an interested gentleman, and later that afternoon he viewed and bought it! This time we sold the van for $100 more than we paid, a result with which we were very pleased.

So that left us with more than 2 clear weeks in Melbourne! Here we are amusing ourselves by feeding the possums in Carlton Gardens (of course you're not supposed to... but they're so cute).

Another day we took a trip down to the historic port of Williamstown, the site of Melbourne's first anchorage.

It's now the site of some charming shops and restaurants where we picked up fish and chips.

Our farewell dinner was at the fabulous Panama dining room in Collingwood. We were very sad to be saying goodbye to the Bowers clan. Hopefully it won't be too long until we return.

Tomorrow we fly to Singapore for a 17- day overland tour to Bangkok- it's going to be a little different from Ivanhoe!