Our trip - Part 2

After leaving Kiama, we stopped in at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at the Navy base HMAS Albatross in Nowra. It's a Naval aviation museum full of old planes, helicopters and other related models and paraphernalia.. To be honest, I found it slightly interesting but not overly riveting - but that's probably just me! The 'boys' seemed to enjoy it - Billy particularly enjoyed the couple of cockpits they had that you could climb in and play with the controls..


We were there for about an hour and then continued to Batemans Bay where we were staying for the night. Other than introducing Billy to the delight of second-hand bookshops (he's now started a Dr Seuss collection), and having fish & chips on the waterfront for tea, we just took it easy for the afternoon.

(For those that know the area, we certainly weren't travelling very far each day but it was enough!)
Day 5 (?) saw us continue south - we stopped in at Bega at the Cheese Factory Heritage Centre. Unfortunately we arrived there at the same time as a busload of school kids and a busload of pensioners - you couldn't get near the tasting area without risking physical harm :) We did manage to buy some vintage cheese and have a quick look at the display of old cheese-making equipment before we gave up!

We stopped at Eden for the night. Eden is an old whaling town, so a visit to the Killer Whale Museum was a must. This was when the trip started to get quite surreal as I visited places that I'd visited as a kid 30+ years ago!


This is a photo of Pete, Billy & "Old Tom" - a full killer whale skeleton. Somewhere my mum has a photo of me & old Tom from when I was about Billy's age!

They had lots of other stuff in the museum as well, including an exhibit about Ned Kelly - Australia's most famous bushranger and to some, folk hero. Even though it wasn't planned, Ned Kelly ended up as a running theme through our holiday.

In the afternoon, Pete & Billy went for a swim in the park pool while I sat in the shade and tried to read my book.

Our next day was a long one compared to what we had been doing. We drove from Eden to Lakes Entrance - the biggest fishing port in Victoria. It was HOT - about 35 deg C (95 F) - and with little escape from the heat, we jumped back in the car, put the air conditioning on, and drove out to visit a nearby winery! Did some grocery shopping on the way home, went for a swim in the pool and waited for it to cool down.

(Photo courtesy of Billy)

More later - off to cook tea.