Mork and Mindy go driving
The most convenient way to go camping is to drive. And drive I did.
Getting to Mount Cole is one of the easiest drives I have made. Across the West Gate Freeway, to the Western Ring Road, to the Western Freeway, which becomes the Western Highway in parts (notice a theme? We are heading out west from Melbourne.) There are no traffic lights, no stop signs, and besides dropping down to 60 km/h in Beaufort or for construction work, your speed is almost always above 80, frequently above 100.
The high speeds ensure that distance is covered in a short amount of time (by definition isn’t it :P.) But breaks are still necessary to prevent discomfort and cramping.
On the journey up, we stopped off at Ballarat to go shopping for food. Of particular note was a souped up Falcon pumping out Right Round to our amusement. The next stop was the town of Beaufort. We were fortunate to arrive during the Saturday market, but there wasn’t much there that interested us.
On the journey back, since Beaufort and Ballarat weren’t far enough away, we had visited them (and we wanted to try out another B town), I decided to stop off in Bacchus Marsh instead. Got $4 worth of chips from George’s Fish and Chip Shop (which has been open for more than 50 years), which was a very generous serve, almost enough for two meals for both of us.
