Gundagi to Melbourne

In the morning the storm had cleared and I had thought of heading up into the Snowy Mountains before heading into Melbourne but the site owner said the storms and rain were still lingering up there so I decided to give it a miss. Back onto the highway for the 6hr drive down to Melbourne. The highway in most parts is dual carriageway but occasionally drops down to a two lane road as it passes through towns. One of these towns is called Hamilton and I had to double take as I got to the centre to find a full size submarine in the middle of the town. I had to stop and take a look. The story goes that the town was once called Germanton, which for obvious reasons didn't ring too well during the Wars, so the town decided to rename the town. To cut a long story short the decided on the name of a British Submarine Captain called Hamilton, and there the association with submarines began, so when HMAS Oxley was to be scrapped the town bought it and 'semi-submerged' it in the centre of the town as tourist attraction, and built a submarine museum next to it. The museum was actually very interesting and showed the history of the town and the submarine it even had a mock up of the inside of a sub complete with periscope that you could 'spy' on the surrounding area. Back on the road I hit Melbourne just at the hight of rush hour. I pulled into a service station and had a look through the local A-Z for Scout Camps thinking there had to be at least one in the Melbourne area. I found one listed as about 30mins drive from where I was so I headed off to it with directions scribbled on a pice of till receipt paper stuck on the dashboard. I found the site no problem apart from the heavy traffic but it was all locked up. A notice board on the outside gave a contact number and I gave it call, Sandra answered and apologised that they were no longer able to have campers as the council now owned the land and was being awkward with the Scouts, but she did come out to meet me with her Husband the Group Leader and they gave me directions to the nearest Tourist site. (the next nearest Scout Site was 2 hours drive away on the other side of the city)

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