Back on the mainland and still having trouble with the van so we have to go into the Melbourne depot to get it fixed (again). So we stayed at Ted & Glenda’s house in Geelong as they had just left for the UK to celebrate Andy’s grandmother’s 100th birthday on the 23rd January.
Happy Birthday Grandma Murrant
The Commonwealth of Australia came into being on Jan 1st 1901 – that means modern Australia is only six years older than his Grandma!
Into New South Wales
Stopped in Albury – the usual stopover point between Melbourne & Sydney but found that most of the bakeries & café’s had already closed their sandwich bars by 1.45pm. We found one offering ‘Crispy Chicken Wraps’, which sounded quite appetizing (imagining Thai chicken on crispy noodle salad) and two plates duly appeared. Hmmm… deep-fried, batter-coated chicken fingers wrapped in a slice of Kraft processed cheese in a tasteless wrap with a bit of wet salad … yummy! (Where’s bloody Jamie Oliver when you need him?)
Dinner was much better, as we had cooked ourselves a curry at T&G’s house, so we stopped to heat it up at ‘Dog on the Tuckerbox’ – yes, that’s really the name of the place.
Immortalized by a Jack Moses poem in which “the dog sat on the tuckerbox nine miles from Gundagai” it refers to an unfortunate bullock-teamster heading into the interior. He got his cart bogged down in the creek, then the bullocks trod on the cart and broke it and to cap it all, his dog wouldn’t help him and just sat on the tuckerbox. Somewhere along the way, this story of a disobedient mutt and swearing teamster has become a symbol of the pioneer spirit and a statue was erected!
