The $463 free camping trip to 90 Mile Beach

Unfortunately peaceful serenity was the last thing on Fran’s mind once the Hoonmobile began swinging through the free campsites. Perhaps it was the terrifying experience of stopping off in Traralgon for supplies – more fast food joints than brain cells and enough potential Biggest Loser winners to keep Channel Ten execs decked out in gold chains well into their retirement – that had her feeling all Wolf Creek. Or perhaps it was the fact that every campsite appeared to be populated entirely by Ute-driving men with mean-looking facial hair wearing lumberjack shirts, heavy boots and meaner glares.

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Echuca: paddlesteamers, kookaburras and overpriced fudge

Perhaps it’s the result a lifetime of seaside resorts such as Margate (in Bruce’s case) and its former Bembom Brothers amusement park or Southend (in Fran’s) where, prior to the smoking ban, non-smokers could experience the effects of a 20-year, two packs-a-day habit merely by sitting down to play bingo for half an hour surrounded by monolithic grandmother-mother-and-baby teams in which the baby’s dummy must surely have been covered in nicorette patches. Or perhaps, as many Aussie friends will observe, it’s just the innate doubt of an English test batsman coming to the crease.

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Phillip Island: Aussie quota achieved

Rather disconcertingly, Fran spotted two pictures of a large man in his 60s, sprawled lasciviously across a bed in a state of some undress hanging next to the shark; it was something one might expect to find in certain Collingwood haunts, but not here. One image – the more worrying of the two – had also been made into a clock.

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How dare you! We’re bloody lovely here

Great food, loopy bar staff, stunning winter sunsets at the beach, drunken Sunday evening covers bands, the “G”, Buddy Franklin’s pitch invasion, suburbs that look like the Wild West minus only the horse and carriage, a brush with a mass murderer and the worst Ghost Train ride in the known universe did the trick.

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Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges

Daylesford, despite the sorrowful leaden skies, was really rather quaint, even boasting a cafe offering Breakfast and Beer (and a bloody good range of beers too). It seemed a place to which many of its inhabitants had escaped; the healer who gave Fran her aura-realigning massage even tried to enlist her for the town’s loon army.

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