The tourist guide suggested a trip along some of the Ninety Mile Beach.
We took to the back roads to a place imaginatively called Seaspray. Just as we were about to reach some sort of civilization, we were forced to stop to let a 1.5 metre (5 foot) Lace Monitor cross the road. He decided that The Motley was a bigger dragon than himself, did an about turn and ran 3 metres (10 feet) up the nearest tree where he watched us watching him watching us watching him. . .
We took photos and told him how beautiful he was and admired him some more. Eventually one of us had to break the stand-off so we withdrew to the truck. He must have decided that the big dragon was not a real threat because he cautiously came down out of the tree and resumed his crossing of the road.
The Ninety Mile beach is l-o-n-g and s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t. It is also largely hidden from the road by sand dunes. Occasionally we were able to see the beach to confirm that it was l-o-n-g and s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t.
Cutting back inland,we reached Longford, site of the recent gas plant disaster. In September, an explosion in the Bass Strait oil and gas field terminal plant killed two men, injured many more and forced the inhabitants of Jeff Kennet's magic kingdom to have cold showers for several weeks.
We haven't yet heard the official explanation for the accident. Maybe we never will. It has been implied that it was an "accident" even an "act of god". Perhaps the corporatisation and accompanying efficiency-driven cost-cutting had nothing to do with it.
As we drove towards Sale, we found ourselves in extensive flooded wetlands. We discovered later that the local Council has been "rectifying" the course of the overflow channel but of course that has nothing to do with the flooding.
In the caravan park, I heard a familiar croak and saw a wattlebird catch and eat a greengrocer cicada. Perhaps summer is really here though the weather doesn't seem quite right.
I talked to an Austrian traveller and the conversation got around to how the world was going to hell in a basket. We both agreed that bad things are happening but he insisted that it was a lot better now than during his childhood when his parent had to raise five children without an assured food supply. That doesn't happen now, he claimed. Well not here or in Germany. Well not much anyway.
It being an anniversary day, we went out to the recommended motel for a birthday dinner. The food was OK and not having to cook being waited on was a pleasant change. On the way out of the restaurant I noticed, hanging on the wall, a paper concerning the nature of gravity and its origin in something other than General Relativity. I mentioned to the waitress that every town had its lunatic scientist so she pointed this particular one out among the guests in the dining room.
On the way back to the caravan park we were stopped by the police for a random breath test. It was a good thing I had abstained altogether at dinner.