The Dog, The Submarine, and The Hobbit

Went on a real road trip. Plan was to leave on Thursday 4am by bundling still-sleeping kids into car and drive into the dawn. Problem was Lily woke up at about 3am and remembered we were going to Melbourne - how exciting. By 3.30am they were both jumping on the beds - so much for the plan. This was a real road trip as there was a very long road and some interesting things to see on the way. Thanks to Nick for clueing us in we stopped to see the Dog on the Tuckerbox.

This is to commemorate some guy building the road I think with some bullocks who broke their wooden yoke about halfway to Melbourne. So the guy is feeling really pissed off and then finds a dog sitting on his tucker box or something like that. So today if you follow the signs to "Dog on Tuckerbox" you can see a statue and fountain of the dog and tuckerbox. I don't know what time we were there - perhaps 8 in the morning. We met some other people who had stopped to see the dog and the tuckerbox. I volunteered to take their photos for which they were grateful.

Next we got to Holbrook. Holbrook has a submarine in the middle of it. An actual really big cold war submarine from the 60s. Holbrook is several hundred kilometers from any sea as far as I can see. Holbrook used to be called Germanton until the First World War when the Australians didn't like Germans so much and named the town after a submarine commander who won a medal for bravery. The bravery involved sailing under an enemy mine-field but I don't think the rest of the crew got medals.

The road to Melbourne takes about 12 hours to drive with stops. It is a good road. I used cruise control for the first time ever. Everyone travels at the same speed +- 5Km/h. There are very few turn-offs so very easy driving. But you start to get a sense that this country is absolutely massive because you are only driving across one little corner. And you start to realize that there are people living many many hours from any decent sized place. And these places have been around since before cars were all that around. And their reality must be different.

The reason we went to Melbourne was to See Anna and Danny and Itai and Tal and Noam. Friends from Tsur Hadassah who moved to Boston to be clever academics and now staying for another year. They were on holiday to visit Anna's family. It was great to see them again and the kids had a blast playing together. Got really well fed and pampered by Anna's parents over Shabbat. We stayed in a managed apartment in South Melbourne which had just been refurbished so was all rather white. Visited the local market and realized how sterile and characterless our Bondi Junction shopping monstrosity is.

And the cool thing was that we drove past Melbourne House creators of The Hobbit graphical adventure on ZX Spectrum circa Ben aged 13. "Exit Room". The uncool thing was that I came down with a nasty cold which has still not gone away totally over a week later.