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Australia: Sydney to Melbourne

A kangaroo
The first time that you see a kangaroo, it's quite a thrill, but after a while in the countryside you get totally used to them

So, on Tuesday I set off on a coach tour to Melbourne. The company was called Stray Cat, and it was pretty good, though I saw so much in those three days that most of it is a blur.

Into the Mountains

Lake Hume
Ghostly Lake Hume was created by man

Wednesday was mainly spent driving through Mt Kosciusko National Park, where Australia's highest peak stands, shrouded in cloud. We stopped at these gorgeous little towns like Adaminaby, Jindabyne and Thredbo, which are the main resorts in the Australian Alpine area, and as a result they're beautiful, but deserted in the summer. We passed Lake Hume, which is a man-made lake that stores water in the winter so the Murray River, one of the main rivers through southeast Australia, can be kept at a reasonable level through the summer. The lake fills valleys that were once filled with gum trees, and quite a few of the trees are still there, dead but standing, making it look like a ghost lake. It's pretty spooky stuff.