July 2006, Stawell Weekend

Some friends had an invited us to attend a model train display in which their club had a display.

Though we had ridden the ST1100 back from Bendigo when we picked her up this was our first trip touring away. Trip distance was just over 500kms away so it was an day ride over.

http://goo.gl/maps/Gxa1p

Our first stop overlooking the plains the other side of the Mount Lofty Ranges. The weather, mid winter looked as if it was going to rain so we put our wet weather gear on.

 Point B on the map.

Wet weather pants on for me only. Heather took a photo of me standing beside the ST1100.

We never had rain until sometime later in the day and we had a dry trip to the BP Truck Stop at Bordertown where we stopped for lunch. This was about the halfway point so the bike got topped up as well. 

Several towns later we neared Stawell and had rain for about the last 10 km.s  until we arrived at the caravan park. Just our luck, the weekend we arrive, they get rainfall which they hadn't had for weeks. 

Heather on the bike outside the Cabin we had for two nights. 

The ST110A 

We caught up with our friends the next day at the model railway show. This was our first digital camera and a lot of shots didn't work out to good.

The first two show my blue model which needed the running in time. Dad has it now and runs it on his small layout from time to time.

I'm not sure but I think these are some my friend's. Rosslyn has so many of everything with her large layout at home that I can only remember a little. 90 percent hers are US railroad based models so it's a safe bet they're hers. Before you ask, yes; girls get into railway hobbies too

Don't know whose the next two were but it's a sample of the reality that can be achieved

The local steam preservation had some restored stuff there as well.

Not sure what the above picture was set up for but the next one was a steam powered generator.

We went for a walk to the shop at lunch time and spotted this house that was up for rent. This remined me of the Munsters TV show as the house looked so run down.

When it came time to leave we took a ride to the town look out and took some shots of the surrounding area.

I managed to get Heather getting ready to get back on the bike.

We took a detour out through Halls Gap which is in The Grampians National Park at Point B in the next map. 

http://goo.gl/maps/Slazw

Some shots from where we parked the bike. We decided to make this a coffee stop.

 Some of the Kangaroos that run freely in the park. Not supposed to feed them but people do.

Looking towards the way out.

Next Stop Dimdoola at Point C.

I spotted this sitting in a park so we stopped and got some pictures.

Next stop was Bordertown.

As we entered the town I spotted a couple of Albino Kangaroo's. We'd never seen them before so a couple pictures.

And a couple Emus

That's it, the end of a weekend, rest of trip back home was uneventful, Rather than cut across country like we did on the trip out we through the Adelaide suburban sprawl for fun.