Our journey down to Melbourne continued through the Murray Valley, which is a very beautiful part of Australia, as we headed for Wodonga. Albury and Wodonga are quite large towns next door to each other that straddle the New South Wales/Victoria border, if you are in NSW you talk about Albury being the border and if in Victoria, all signs point to Wodonga as the crossing point. These are not terribly exciting towns but they serve as 'the big smoke' for outlying farming communities. On a Friday night the young men and women from these far flung spots come into town all dressed up and often stay for the weekend to get their fill of nights out and to meet potential partners. This can be a problem for young people living on remote farms and our latest reality TV show here is called, 'The Farmer Wants A Wife' you can guess what happens.
Anyway, Wodonga was a good spot for cheap diesel and the more we travel, the better we get at taking advantage of these opportunities. We have three jerry cans on the back of the caravan which almost hold a second tank of fuel so whenever we see it cheap we fill them as well as the car so are never forced into an expensive petrol station out of desperation.
From Wodonga we passed through pine forests grown for logging and more towns with interesting snippets of information on their signs - Shelley (Pure trains and timber), Tullangatta (The town that moved in the 1950s) (?). As Tullangatta disappeared into the distance a series of huge lakes skirted the road so I'm guessing they moved when they found their town was in danger of being at the bottom of a lake.
The temperature was gradually going up and reached 41 degrees as we arrived in Warrandyte, the fire warning signs changed from Very High to Extreme, there is only on more category - Catastrophic - and the radio gave out reports of bush fires springing up in various parts of the state. We found the campsite and set up the caravan then went to explore. When it reaches 40+ in Victoria it is because the wind is blowing south across the centre of Australia so it is like having a hot hairdryer trained on you, the weather here can also change in minutes because if the wind direction alters so it is blowing north, it is coming straight from the South Pole  which is why Melbourne is famous for having four seasons in one day. We walked through Warrandyte, spurred on by the sight of a big ice cream on the front of a shop at the end of this pretty little town. When we got there it was shut with a notice on the door saying 'closed because of extreme heat' a bit of a poor business decision for an ice cream shop on the hottest day of the year so far.
Next morning it was still hot and we decided to squeeze in a visit to Montsalvat before Zoe and Shaun arrived. Montsalvat is fascinating, it was built in the 1950s in the grounds of a 19th century house by an artist and his family. He used mud bricks, wattle and daub and various reclaimed materials and the result is something that looks like a medieval village. It is still an artist community with the unique buildings occupied by goldsmiths, a flute maker, a guitar maker, silversmiths and sculpters. The interior of the Great Hall was like Hogwarts.
Back at the campsite, the temperature plummeted and it started to rain. The power went off as Zoe and Shaun arrived and the complete fire ban was still in place leaving us no way to cook our Christmas dinner, so we went out to eat instead.