Port Fairy and Surrounds

Although Lake Eildon was beautiful, the cold of the inland nights and the desire to see the coast resulted in a fairly long drive straight to the Great Ocean Road. However, the crowds and the fairly dismal standard of Lorne Caravan Park meant we only stayed for one night before continuing on.

It doesn't seem to matter how many times you have traversed this section of the Australian coastline, it never ceases to amaze. Due to all the rain that has fallen lately, the drive was even more spectacular than usual. We mostly just drove and took in the lushness of the rainforest, the surreal greenness of the cute little farms and of course the amazing deep blue of the ocean, However, we did stop for coffee in Apollo Bay and the obligatory stop at the Twelve Apostles. We have seen them several times before but thought Jarvis might find them spectacular too. Well he was impressed but not by the rock formations created over millions of years but instead by the echidna who crawled up to say hi and sniff Rob's finger and the helicopters which buzzed above, oh yeah and the John Deer ride on mower.

Jarvis was way more interested in helicopters than the Twelve Apostles, he even brought one of his own.

The last time Rob and I passed through this way was our honeymoon, 5 years ago (almost to the day). On that drive I had taken particular note of a little southern port town called Port Fairy, it was really pretty but we didn't have time to stop and look around. So this time we decided to aim for Port Fairy and stay for a few days. Unfortunately the wind and a little rain also decided to take residence in Port Fairy at the same time. Although, I'm told that that's just the Southern Ocean for you. The weather didn't dampen our time here, we still managed to explored islands, volcanoes, nearby towns and local coffee shops and frequent the local park which had Jarvis' now favourite "spinny thing" (aka very fast round-about, which will make any reasonable adult sick in a matter of minutes). We met emus and seabirds and Jarvis had his first close up experience with a lighthouse, which has started a love affair and constant requests to be taken to see a lighthouse.

Jarvis on the 'spinny thing'

Jarvis being an Emu (the goggles are a bit of an obsession
at the moment)

I would have said Port Fairy is the prettiest seaside town I have visited. However, that was before our next, very short (overnight) stop at Robe. In fact, the southern ocean coastline is scattered with postcard perfect historical towns. I would highly recommend continuing the Great Ocean Road drive up to Adelaide with lots of stops in the little towns along the way. However, a little tip is to ensure you take the Southern Ports Highway, a slight diversion from the Prices Highway.

Lake Eildon

We made it out of Sydney alive! with clean clothes, our tummies full of takeaway and Jarvis loaded up with grandparent hugs.

We stopped at Blackheath on our first night to visit Nonna. A visit which I had been dying for and as if a Nonna hug wasn't enough, she fed us her famous risotto, berry crumble and loaded us up with veges from the garden.

From Blackheath we headed over the range to Bathurst and then followed the western foothills of the range south. The drive from Bathurst to Young was gorgeous, well worth the trip if you're headed that way. Some of the highlights for us were the lunch stop at the wind farm near Blaney (such an engineer I know, but it was really interesting) and the orchards on the hills on the way into young. We only stopped for a night in Young before continuing south towards Vic. We had a rest stop in Cootamundra and we were hoping to see the Cootamundra Wattle in bloom but we were a bit late so only small patches remained. However we did make a fly by visit of Donald Bradman's birthplace, a fairly simple little house, but Jarvis has been asking "where's Dong's house" ever since and is convinced every historic looking house or pub is Dong's house. Maybe we have a budding cricket enthusiast on our hands.

We spent the next four days, including my birthday, at Lake Eildon. We stayed in a state forest just near Mansfield. Mansfield itself is a really cute town, it's got a bit of that Alpine feel as Mount Bulla is just up the road but also has great cafes, deli and all those sorts of things that we love. The campsite was great and free! We had a little clearing on the foreshore of the lake all to ourselves. The lake was extremely full due to all the recent rain and there were trees poking out of the water for metres from the foreshore. The lake itself is spectacular, there are steep rolling hills right down to the water with little farms, pine forests and bush. There are a couple of little towns, one of which is the famous Bonnie Doon ("love the smell of two stroke in the morning"). We took the boat the Bonnie Doon on my birthday. It took over an hour to get there due to the massive size of the lake and we found a little island for a picnic lunch. Rob got a spot of fishing in while during our stay at the Lake and Jarvis again assisted this process by sleeping for most of the time on the boat. We will definitely be back to Lake Eildon for a visit one day we have had a fabulous time here.

Jarvis fishing for a daddy fish.

Random camel by the side of the road

Sleeping on the boat

Campsite

Hotham: Snow Time

Big Red had her first big road challenge. Rob has done some work on the old girl to get her ready for the 4WD adventuring ahead and the steep mountain climb up to Hotham provided the perfect opportunity to see how she was running. The drive to Hotham from Deniliquin is spectacular. The foothils of the mountains are lush and green, the small towns all have a historic appeal to them and ass we started to head up the mountains everything took on a European style. It is very different to the NSW ski fields and well worth a visit for those who haven't been. You won't be disappointed.

As the avid snow goers out there will know, Australia had a fabulous start to the season this year. That said, it hadn't snowed in a few weeks when we set out for Hotham, but snow was predicted and we were excited just to be going to the snow. We stayed in a very cute little chalet in Dinner Plain, which is a small village about 15km from Hotham but still above the snow line. It is slightly more protected than Hotham and has a small ski run for little kids. There are also fabulous bars and restaurants. We went to a Japanese Restaurant called Tsubo, which was extremely good, even if a large number of the dishes used "rehydrated" and "dehydrated" fruits that were surprisingly tasty.

The first opportunity we got, we ditched the kids in daycare, strapped on the snowboards and headed for the slopes. The snow wasn't fabulous but as Rob and I had never been to Hotham before all the runs were new to us and they are all fairly steep so lots of fun was had. We only got one day on the runs but the next day was spent playing with the kids on the small run in Dinner Plain. To tell you the truth it was just as much fun as spending time on the runs. Jarvis and Sas had a go on some tiny skis and we all had a great time tobogganing and having snowball fights.

The drive home took us through Beechworth for a lovely visit and lunch and we rolled into the farm just as the sun was setting. I could get used to this.

Big Red Outside our Chalet

Melbourne.... with kids

We had a different to our usual experience of Melbourne last weekend (8 to 11th July), we took kids, 3 of them! Now when Rob and I go to Melbourne it usually involves some snazzy dinners, boutique bars and of course shopping. However, these sorts of activities were slightly limited by the addition of 3 kids under 3. That said, we still managed to have a fabulous time and as usual Melbourne was simply fantastic.

We (me, Rob, Jarvis, Kate, Andy, Saskia and Zara) arrived in Melbourne after a 3 hour drive with Sas and Jarvis "dying" for the toilet, they are recently out of nappies so there's no messing round with that sort of stuff so we pulled into the Botanic Gardens to use the amenities and ended up getting coffee and went adventuring through the childrens garden.

We then made our way to Fitzroy for some dinner at the pub. It was cozy and warm by the fire and the food was perfect. Thanks to miss Angela French we had a fabulous apartment in the middle of Melbourne to retire to. I almost fell over when I walked in, it is the trendiest yet most comfortable apartment ever, completely Ange and completely perfect for our weekend in Melbourne.

Saturday was spent at the Collingwood Childrens Farm and Growers Market. The farm is tucked away in a valley on a bend of the Yarra River. You wouldn't know you were in a busy city at all. The markets were really well managed with no useless stalls only top produce, yummy food and coffee to die for. We ate all kinds of yummy things and made sure we sampled all of the produce on offer (I gave the goat a miss). We then walked up the hill to the Abotsford Convent. There are a couple of little eateries in the convent grounds, one of which is Lentil as Anything, it is a fabulous vegetarian, not for profit organisation which asks it's patrons to pay what they feel the food (and the organisation) is worth. Unfortunately, the kids were starving and the wait was huge, so we made a small donation and then went to the Convent Bakery next door.

On Sunday we finally got to have a taste of the Victoria Markets. This sort of thing is definitely lacking in Sydney. It's a fabulous, huge market where you can buy lots of junk, but more importantly fresh produce: veges, fish, meat and most importantly... cheese. We stocked up on all the sorts of things we can't get in Deni and loaded up the portable fridge which we had brought along specifically for this purpose. We then made our way to Brunswick Street, had lunch at the Little Creatures Bar and then perused my favourite strip of shops.

We headed home on Monday after scrubbing ange's apartment clean of any evidence of the kids (just kidding ange) and a yummy breakfast at the George Street cafe. We had a great weekend in Melbourne but it was lovely to snuggle up by the fire back at Kintyre and gobble up some of (ok, most of) the cheese and wine we had purchased in Melbourne.