The Prom to the Capital

The drive out of Melbourne and to Wilsons Promontory got pretty good. Trees everywhere and the approaching coast looked great. We made it just to the edge of the national park itself and stopped at a campsite right next to another gorgeous lake. You can tell we're far south though. It's freezing. The wind felt arctic, and most likely was. We had to get north to get warm so the next day we first drove south to have a quick peek at the Prom and then head north as quick as possible.
Wilsons Prom is another one of those other-worldy places that Oz seems to have in abundance. We drove down surrounded by coast of both sides with rolling hills......wait a minute, they're massive sand dunes, and the odd mountain. Blimey. The sea is a colour of blue I don't think I've seen before and the whole place looks amazing. We took a a couple of hours walk down to a beach named Squeaky Beach. It's exactly what it says on the tin. Squeaky. The white sand particles are large and round here and when you walk or slide on the stuff it squeaks. I thought this was totally weird but great. The beach was all to ourselves too and we were only joined by other people once we started heading back.
There are plenty of walks and cycling trails around here and the area is just unreal. I'd come back because we really didn't get chance to see much. Although the river nearby the information centre was orange. Very clear and orange. Is this insane or what? On the way back from Squeaky Beach I nearly stepped on a huge wombat. They're fairly cute animals and quite docile. Just munching away whilst we wander past, I mean come on, this place really is like a frickin zoo island.
Due to the cold we made a rather rash decision to head north quick. We tried, probably foolishly, to pull an all nighter. This has various problems. After dusk is when roos and wombats stroll freely on the unlit roads and, as we started to realise, not many petrol stations stay open. Due to being so cold in the van we thought driving would at least be ok with the heater on. Unfortunately, we should've known, the heater packed up a couple of hours into the night. We were driving in utter darkness with coats, hats, gloves and a blanket on. This soon turned spooky on the dark way to Canberra.
We were entering ski country, we should've known that would be cold too. Although the ski-ing areas looked lacking in snow, a major problem I'm sure, it was still cold. In the dark it was quite eerie. We knew there were large mountains looming around us but we couldn't see them, in daylight we would've seen Australia's largest peak but not now. Then the snow started. We had brilliant sunshine during the day and now comes the snow. And also the fog. Large patches of mist and fog envelop the road. This looked cool but didn't feel too great at the time.
We ended up having to pull over at a rest stop at 3am in the morning as we were running perilously low on fuel. It was a bit dodgy but ok. When we awoke we realised we were camped right next to a 'no camping' sign. Ah well. It was also in one of the grimmest logging towns we'd seen so far. Deliverance style.
Off to the next town for fuel, Coomra. A small-ish town based around the ski industry. Had an alpine look to it but a bit uglier. Let's get to Canberra, please.
We'd now left the state of Victoria for New South Wales, a humongous state. And then we go onto Canberra which is in it's own little area, known as the ACT. I can't remember what this stands for at the moment but it ....oh yes, it's Australian Capital Territory. It's a tiny area but there you go. We'd heard a bit about Canberra and that it's not really worth visiting even though it's the capital but we have to find out.