19th August.

Surprisingly slept well and awake before the alarm at 6am. Breakfast at the motel was one dollar each extra and there was a really great variety of food, the best we saw whilst we were away. Both very hungry and helped ourselves to cereal, toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, mushrooms and apricot tarts. Still could have eaten more but it just seemed indecent. Just goes to show our body clock wasn't on breakfast time. Our normal breakfast whilst away was very small.
Quick walk down to Southern Cross Station and we were off on the train to Ballarat.
Onto the bus to Hamilton. It seems that some things have changed with V-Line. They had an employee there organising the luggage into piles for the different sections of the trip. No hand held luggage on board the bus unless it was placed in the racks, not on the floor under the seats 'where it could hurt another passenger'. Go figure? You would think falling from an overhead rack would be more of a danger. No alcohol, hot drinks or hot food allowed and the driver even went for a walk down the isle to check that everyone had their seat belts on.
Off to Hamilton and very happy to see water running everywhere. Arrived at Hamilton and collected by Annette's mum and escorted home. Very pleased to see the old place again.
Just in summing up we were surprised we stayed so long in France. It really is pretty easy to get around the country and again we found nearly all the people we had contact with very pleasant and helpful even if they couldn't speak any English. A lot of people had never met Australians before and were amazed at us just wandering around their country with backpacks. Annette got to see lots of churches and chateaus. We got to sample lots of food and Annette became pretty good at reading the menus. The only regret I have is we didn't get up into the alps but there is always next time. Hope you have enjoyed following our wanderings this year.