Strawberry picking!

A previous impromptu road trip lead me to stumble upon a unique activity - strawberry picking. This time I made sure I arrived before their 5pm closing time to give it a try. I also figured that getting fresh food for the road trip would be good.

So 800g of freshly picked, red, juicy strawberries later, I was happy as a lark. I drove further down the road into town to look for a loo. It was a funky button push public toilet. Not the cleanest but I've seen worse. I figured this would be my first of many encounters on this trip with a public toilet. I imagined myself having to wash my hair in one. I'm glad I brought my bucket and bottles of clean water and decided that I would definitely refrain from washing myself in any public facility.

It's really great arriving in a town during business hours on a non public holiday. The information centre and the shops were open. Having only started packing 2 hours before leaving home, I'm proud to say that the only things I forgot were toothpaste, towel and (I would later discover) warm clothes. So a quick stop at the local supermarket I came out with toothpaste, a packet of small face towels (I can't believe they charged me $8 dollars for 10 pieces of thin cotton!), and a packet of almonds and dates each.

<side note advice for backpackers/adventure travellers: Personally, I do the almond and date thing a lot when travelling. They are not only healthy but provide energy, are light to carry and if nothing else taste great.>

The local information centre (solid blue sign with a yello 'i' in the middle) lead me to discover Werribee State Park, famous for the Werribee Gorge. Due to time restraints (It was about 1630 at this point and the walks were several hours long) I decided against doing any full walks, just heading down a track for a little bit and returning. Going out into bushland by yourself is never advisable. So it wasn't a good idea to start with, but I found it interesting what was going through my head. Fear, exhiliration, excitement. I wasn't exactly doing anything amazing, but it felt rather good to be out in nature, by myself, no one else about, enjoying the sun, the river and all those sounds of nature. During my walk, I was more concerned about meeting nasty people than I was creatures. Kind of says something, doesn't it? Well, I decided I best be going. I had a destination to head to (Halls Gap) but figured I'd drive until I got tired. That happened at about 7pm or so in Ararat. I didn't really mean to stop there. But after going around in circles looking for some Chinese museum (having turned off to follow yet another brown sign) and then being dissapointed that the gaol of the criminally insane was now and 'old gaol' and also closed for the day I decided the sandman was calling. This was not before I accidentally mistakened the local hospital (opposite the old gaol) as a modern low security gaol. Well it was near here I set up camp. Whilst there was still a bit of light left I took a quick walk around town (ie. up and down the main and only strip). Tomorrow I decided that I would try the Chinese museum again... ...that would not occur. This trip, I would be sleeping in my little car. During the night, I discovered that it definitely got down to single digits in Ararat in Autumn. Without anything more than a jumper (at least my top and pants could be layered) and my picnic mat, I froze but butt off. At 6am after waking up way, way too many times during the night I decided that driving in the warmth of my heated car would be way more comfortable. So I was off!