Abi Twelve

Abi turned 12 this week - but so far it seems that the 16.2 hand, 600kg bundle of joy, Ringo, has been the main beneficiary of most of her birthday present giving.

We took Abi out to Redlands at Womboin on Monday afternoon this week and enjoyed seeing Ringo in all his new birthday finery (and its not even his birthday)! 

Leading him to the tie ups, from his favourite grazing spot in the back paddock ........

Wearing his new matchy, matchy set: saddle pad, ear bonnets and designer leather breastplate ... none of which comes cheap (nothing about horses comes cheap)!

What a babe - and doesn't he know it!!

They make a very handsome pair!

We enjoyed a lovely birthday dinner on Wednesday with Abi and the family at her local fave Japanese restaurant - Okami in Mawson. Abi could eat sushi, sashimi, miso, gyoza etc for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

It was hard to organise a cake inside the restaurant so we were adaptable and  did birthday cupcakes afterwards in the carpark ....

There was something hilariously funny about blowing out a birthday cupcake candle in the carpark!!!

But no less enjoyable for all that!

As always it is such a joy for us to share so many happy times with these beautiful people - and extra special to share with Abi so many of her happiest times out at Redlands (and other places).

Geelong - Melbourne

We used to visit Melbourne pretty regularly, but with one thing and another we've had a very big break since our last visit - almost 6 years to be exact. Our last visit was to attend James W.'s 50th birthday party in Fitzroy in March 2018.

So with our extra few days here in Geelong we decided to take advantage of the proximity and catch a train into Melbourne city for the day (on Thursday). We enjoyed the train ride - clean, uncrowded and pretty quick - only an hour from South Geelong Station into the huge Southern Cross Station at Docklands. Under instruction from Pete we caught a FREE tram in Collins Street from there and in no time at all we were in the centre of the city!

We both wanted to check out some familiar sites. First stop was a Melbourne coffee in one of the coffee shops on Degraves Lane. It was good but nowhere near as memorable as our early days in Melbourne when getting a great coffee in a hipster city cafe was a bit of a novelty for us unsophisticated Canberrans.

We wandered around Melbourne's beautiful inner city arcades, admiring the architecture, ...... including the Royal Arcade off Bourke Street .....

 

and The Block .........

We had lunch at an old favourite - Young and Jackson on Flinders Street, along with many other Melbournites of a similar vintage to us.

Such a Melbourne icon over the road - Flinders Street Station. 

I did some shopping in the afternoon: Alpha 60, Et Al, The Emporium etc, and managed to carry all the parcels back with us on that excellent Geelong train service.

Friday night we enjoyed a "date night" dinner with Ros and Pete at the Gold Diggers Arms Hotel in Newtown. We never fail to be impressed with the quality of food offerings and the range of friendly, character filled venues in Geelong!

We enjoyed our third visit to our fave Born and Bread Bakehouse yesterday morning in Pakington St. The coffee is great there - but it is the baked goodies (pretzels yum!) that are truly unique. We've walked to Born and Bread three different ways now but yesterday we showed Pete the interesting new creative precinct on Rutland Street on the walk back to the Barwon River (and then home).

After our morning walk we set out for Aireys Inlet, a beautiful beach side town on the Surf Coast  around 45klms SW of Geelong. Ros and Pete had worked out a very scenic walk for us once we got there, taking us all around the iconic Split Point Lighthouse (of ABC TV Round the Twist fame)........

... and giving us beautiful views of this amazing coastline facing out to Bass Strait.  This view of Eagle Rock from the lighthouse lookout was very popular (as a selfie backdrop) with all the visiting Instagrammers.

This was the view looking northwards towards Anglesea and Bells Beach..........

... and the view back to the lighthouse from Land's End Lookout.

We were rewarded at the end of our walk with a lovely lunch at Aireys Pub & Salt Brewery.

And we finished off another wonderful day and our bonus extra days' stay with Ros and Pete with another AMAZING meal - huge SA prawns and Coffin Bay oysters purchased fresh on the way home from the Seafood Suppliers right next to the Barwon Heads Airport.

Its been a wonderful stay - and now we are so excited about our next catch up with this lovely pair - in LONDON!! (yes, in May this year!)

An unexpected day

The plan for yesterday was to drive from Port Fairy to Halls Gap via The Grampians - normally a two hour drive north along the Dunkeld Penshurst Road. With a day of "extreme" fire conditions in the area we thought we were doing the right thing by changing our route to Halls Gap at the last minute, to avoid going through the fire vulnerable forest roads of The Grampians NP. 

We left Port Fairy round 10.00am giving an affectionate wave to our fave 2A Wishart  Street (already booked for the Jazz Festival weekend in February 2025!).
 

About an hour out of Pt Fairy, approaching Dunkeld we got our first view of the southern peaks of The Grampians - an amazing sight after the miles and miles of flat empty grasslands and pasture along the Dunkeld Penshurst Road.

We had a coffee/handmade pie stop at Dunkeld, home of the iconic Wickens Restaurant and looking good today with all the Red Gums along the main street in full bright red flower.

We detoured at Dunkeld, heading east towards the Great Western Highway to avoid the road to Halls Gap through the National Park. All the while we could tell it was becoming increasingly windy and the outside temperature was rising to the high thirties. We eventually stopped a little way past the small town of Great Western at Best's Winery, one of the iconic wineries in this cool climate (not today!) wine region (alongside the larger Seppelts winery which was just down the road a way).

It was a welcome change to get out of the searing heat and down into the old cellars of Best's winery - one of the oldest in Australia with plantings dating from the 1860s.

Parts of this beautiful old cellar were dug out by hand and the red gum supports were hand milled from trees cleared when the original vines were planted around 160 years ago (no nails were used in the construction either).

We enjoyed a "Premium Wine Tasting experience" here - tasting 7 wines from the range while enjoying a platter of local cheeses. The pleasure was not to last however when messages started coming through from Victorian Emergency Services to LEAVE THE AREA due to a number of uncontrolled fires nearby - directly threatening the township of Pomonal which was on our direct route from Great Western to Halls Gap. On hearing the news we went straight into planning mode, cancelling our 2 night stay at Halls Gap and making arrangements with Ros and Pete to extend our stay with them in Geelong for another 2 nights. Judy and Jurgen made the decision to try to make it back to Canberra. As we emerged from Best's the air felt searingly hot dry and blustery with a menacing smoke haze building all around us.

It was quite tense making driving through the blustery conditions with twigs, branches and leaves falling all around us, smoke haze enveloping everything and fire trucks screaming past us heading northwards .

it was a relief to get away from it eventually and we welcomed a reviving stop in Ballarat on the drive back to Geelong. By this stage we started to hear about the power outages all over the state due to severe storm damage to infrastructure. Judy and Jurgen were really affected by all this on the road back to Canberra (affecting petrol availability, traffic lights not working etc etc) but we were fine.

I took this pic in Ballarat in Lydiard St N - a city of beautiful old buildings - a legacy of gold mining prosperity back in the day.

And a very photogenic laneway in Ballarat's Armstrong St N........

It was so lovely to be welcomed so warmly by darling Ros & Pete here in Geelong last night after such a dramatic day - no power problems where they live, no fires, and no hot winds either. Rob and I went for a long walk this morning - all the way to Born & Bread in Newtown for a good coffee and beautiful handmade pretzels. We walked some of the way along the Barwon River which was looking very pretty this morning - like an Australian Impressionist painting. Geelong is a beautiful city - we're so lucky to be here!

Port Fairy 2

Our Port Fairy visit wasn't just about the jazz and the doggies. For us it was also about catching up with dear friends and celebrating our time together with opportunities for extended conversations with some beautiful shared meals thrown in for good measure.

Judy (and Jurgen) had us all organised for a fabulous lunch on Saturday, just like in the Rosedale Beach days ........ local crayfish (lobster) off the boat that morning, locally grown Dutch Cream potatoes roasting in the oven ...........

 

... and me putting the finishing touches to the salad in this Stayz.com dream kitchen of ours!

The wines were top shelf too (of course). We started with a Clover Hill sparkling to get the ball rolling.

Such a happy lunch together - everything was just superb - an unforgettable celebration!

We even managed to put in a good effort at the Jazz Festival after this amazing lunch and wine drinking marathon, although the concentration wasn't as good as it could have been as the evening wore on.

We sadly farewelled Fiona and James early Sunday afternoon - our time with them is very precious. We made sure we toasted them later on at G&T time, with their gift of Noosa gin.

Yesterday we spent a quiet day with Judy and Jurgen enjoying some of the local delights of Port Fairy and Warrnambool. In the morning we took a long walk around Griffiths Island ......... admiring the extensive nesting burrows of the local Shearwater colony all over the island.

........ and the lighthouse (of course)...........

And then we walked on to South Beach, facing out on to the Indian Ocean.

We drove into Warrnambool in the afternoon - doing a bit of Op shopping and antique & collectibles and gourmet food shop browsing. We thought there was a lot to interest us in Warrnambool!