We went down through Cowra, Young, Wagga Wagga and Albury, crossing the Murray River and the state line into Victoria there.

We stopped regularly to let the dogs stretch their legs and Willy eat.

  

I had printed out maps, but the scale was unhelpful, the signposting was woeful and it was that time of day when the sky is still bright and the ground is dark so it's difficult driving. So we got lost in Wodonga, and lost on the freeway (I assumed they'd be country highways like into Canberra, and wasn't prepared for freeway traffic or the poor signposting so we ended uptaking the "scenic route" and reached the B&B at about 6.30pm instead of 4pm.

The B&B was great, they made us a delicious slow cooked pork belly for dinner and a tangy lemon tart for dessert. The accomodation was warm and comfortable, including a carafe of Rutherglen muscat that we both had a small glass of before bed. Willy refused a bottle (he'd been thingy about it for the last few days) so we settled them all on tethers (oleander plants around garden) and slept like the dead.

Woken then next morning by Poppy barking and Willy bleating, two guys in high vis were leaning over the fence talking to them. Breakfast was pancakes for me and full english for DH. Then back in the cars. Even the dogs were a bit relucatant this time.

Back on the freeway and this time it's DH's job to navigate and my job to stick close. The freeway chaos the night before has dented my confidence...

Smooth sailing all the way in following the signs straight to Melbourne. Alvin's head all the way out one window, Poppy's nose out the other. We pulled up at a truck stop to let the dogs stretch their legs and Willy do some eating and a guy had his horse out of the trailer doing the same thing.

As we got closer and closer in the traffic got heavier and heavier and the lane changing more scary. DH was following the signs for City of Melbourne and looking for Port Melbourne turnoffs, or even Spirit of Tasmania (the name of the ferry) signage. What he WASN'T looking for was a ruddy great boat sillhouette on the sign...

Just as I saw the boat and thought "Yes !!" DH went left with the City of Melbourne signs. "No !!" I wailed...

Deeper and deeper into the CBD we went. Slower and slower the traffic moved. I offended about half the people in the traffic by refusing to merge alternately because if I lost DH things were going to get ugly. I got stranded across the tram tracks and just about pooped myself waiting to get hammered amidships by a tram. I met the infamous "hook" turns where you have to pull into the left lane and wait for a signal if you want to turn right.

I did the creep forward three car lengths at each change of lights. We did mad flying u turns in intersections, asked passers by for directions while stuck at lights. And the whole time the dogs had their heads out the windows sniffing like mad and looking at everything and people were lining the sidewalk pointing and taking photos of the dogs. I wished we'd have had Willy's tarp lifted so they could see him too. Bet we'd have made the news ...