Driving through country Victoria

After staying overnight at Batemans Bay, I had a leisurely drive south with a break for a walk at Lakes Entrance.

Stopped off for lunch at the Berlin Cafe at Genoa where I met the wonderful Marian.

The cafe is on the river, it's decorated with flower boxes out the front and chooks in the garden.

While much of the menu is crossed out and many of the other items aren't actually on today, Marian was able to whip me up a huge hamburger with the lot in no time.

While she cooked I heard about the local politics surrounding the colour of the proposed public toilet.

After the cooking was done we sat outside, smoked our pipes (well, she smoked hers) and we had a very amusing conversation.

Marian has an amazing story including a war, truck driving, rescuing motor accident victims and running a country cafe.

Tonight I've stopped over at the Hacienda International motor inn at Sale.

The $80 room is clean and comfortable, decorated in a Spanish style (I presume) with exposed beam ceilings.

For $10 you get internet access and I notice they use a system called WifiDog where they give you a password that works for 24 hours and limits you to 100MB.

It worked very well when I first checked in but now it's peak time it has slowed and was difficult to get authenticated again.

Tomorrow it's off to Melbourne to catch up with friends and family.