Day 7-8 Botany Bay and travel to Melbourne

The last two days where long and rather exhausting since we travelled from Sydney to Melbourne, with one stop in Merimbula on the way. That is quite a lot of kilometers to drive, and we could have used one more day to look at things on the way, particularly around Merimbula and Eden. Before we really left Sydney we did take time to visit Botany Bay, and I am really happy we did. I have now seen where James Cook, Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and also the often forgotten Herman Spöring from Finland who had the job as Solanders assistant/secretary landed with Endeavor in 1770. Today there is a visitors center, and nearby is Cape Solander. We did not visit Cape Solander, but looked at the exhibition and took the short walk to the landing site where there is a monument. Today Botany Bay is a harbour where for example oil tankers come in. In a way I think it is very appropriate, I am quite certain Linnaeus would have appreciated all kinds of development, even if he most likely also would have realized the environmental hazards of oil. Also the aircrafts coming in to Sydney international airport flies right over Botany Bay, so foreigners not only arrived this way in 1770, they still do. Today the aboriginal history of the site is recognized in a much better way than has earlier been the case, and at least a bit of that story is also told in the exhibition.

Annika and Alice at Botany Bay

On the path to the landing site, Botany Bay

When we were on the road towards Merimbula from Botany Bay we rather soon felt we needed to eat something and found a place called Altitude 1148, with fantastic view, right outside Sydney. We soon realized that there was some kind of major accident on the highway we planned on taking and we where directed onto a smaller road, along with everyone else. We spent more than one hour in a qeue that hardly moved and there was a lot of traffic all the way almost. The roads were narrow, steep, curvy and very high speeds are allowed on them. We had a couple of scary moments, but on the whole we arrived safely in the end. The landscape has been very shifting, from grazed planes with hills softly rounded on the horizon to what felt as deep forests with high trees and big changes in altitude. At some parts of the way we of course also saw the ocean. Sometimes you feels as if you are in the alps, sometimes in Middle Earth and sometimes it actually looked the way I expected Australia to look like. My expectation was a lot of dry planes, with cattle and some bushes, but I must say it has been way more varied than I thought. We arrived in Merimbula when it was dark, which was a pity since it turned out to be a beautiful coastal town in a bay with a lot of vacations apartments.

Beautiful Merimbula

We left Merimbula rather early in the morning since we still had even more kilometers than the first day of travel. The landscape was a little less shifting today, more of woods and not so many villages and towns. We had lunch in a place called Orbost, at the local bakery they had homemade pies and sausages rolls, it all tasted very good. The traffic was a little less heavy than the day before, and one more stop was enough before we reached our destination. We had coffee in a lovely little coffee shop; Birch and Perch, in a place called Rosedale. They had delicious pastries and also sold craft from both Australia and other parts of the world. Since we got up earlier and did not do much sightseeing on the way we arrived in Richmond, Melbourne in good time before dinner. This time we have a fantastic airbnb, full of interesting art and really stylish decorated. The host also left a list of good cafés and restaurants in the neighborhoods and we decided to try the Vietnamese one on the list. It is called The Paper Plate, and is located in the busy Bridge Street. And it was really a fantastic place to eat in, the spring rolls with crab and prawns were among the best spring rolls I have ever had!

The bakery in Orbost

The early 20th century hotel in Orbost

Lovey Birch and Perch in Rosedale