Port Fairy break

With Rod's slow recovery now stabilising we felt it was ok to head off over the weekend for (a shortened version of) our now annual visit to Port Fairy in SW Victoria - where the Moyne River enters the Great Southern Ocean. 

We set out last Thursday afternoon after a full on meeting with Rod's medical team at Canberra Hospital - and made it as far as Benalla in central Victoria, a few hours drive north of Melbourne. Benalla is a busy small town during the day but let me tell you there is not much happening around town after 7.30 - other than this very pretty sunset over the Broken River.

We got to Port Fairy around 1.00pm on Friday in time for a leisurely lunch and catch up with dear friends Judy and Jurgen and James & Fiona - before starting to explore all the delights of what is one of the sweetest small towns in this part of Victoria.

There is always a lot going on here over the second weekend in February - including the Port Fairy Jazz Festival and the Commonwealth Sheepdog Championships  - but more importantly it's where we all choose to meet up to celebrate friendship, the Jazz, doggies ......... AND LOBSTERS!!

This is James, on Saturday, with our lobster haul, straight off the boat, freshly caught by Port Fairy's local (cray)fishermen.

This is the legendary pair that makes this weekend happen. Judy and Jurgen, lobster lunch experts of many years standing now .... We're so lucky to know you!!

We all contributed to the lobster lunch feast on Saturday. Rob and I were given an easy job this year in recognition of our time at the hospital with Rod - we made a simple appetizer to serve with the obligatory glass of Majella Sparkling Shiraz to kick off the feast.

It was so good to catch up with beautiful Fiona this year too and hear her perspectives on family, work, and carving out a new life in Geelong .......

James and Fiona's friends, Mark and Christine, joined us for lunch too. They contributed dessert - a fabulous apple pie from a King Valley baker served with custard and icecream... a fitting end to our fabulous feast.

Fiona made these beautiful salads, Judy and Jurgen foraged for local potatoes (grown locally in the region's rich volcanic soil) baking them and then serving them with sour cream and chopped spring onions - a superb complement to the seafood.

My favourite meal (and wine) of all time!

It doesn't get better than this ...

I bought this beautiful bunch of foliage and flowers at Port Fairy's Community Market on Saturday morning. We saw eucalyptus with these intense scarlet flowers all along the roads into Port Fairy - I think its called a Corymbia ficifolia tree!

We carried over the feasting to Sunday morning when James and Fiona prepared a slap up breakfast for the 8 of us - another chance to celebrate our last day all together!

In between the feasting we kept up with highlights from the Jazz Festival program which ran for about 12 hours each day on the weekend, across a number of distinctive Port Fairy venues. The winds off the Great Southern Ocean can make Port Fairy a cold, blustery town at times. This weekend was one of those times.

We love the way the whole town gets behind the festival. There's music playing EVERYWHERE all throughout the day and the nights!

We spent both Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Commonwealth Sheepdog Championships and enjoyed watching these highly intelligent dogs doing what they're bred for and what makes them truly happy.

The Guardian newspaper ran a story on the Championships - these photos are from that story. If you zoom in on the grandstand picture you can see our group sitting there as spectators on the right side front.

We all love the ABC's Muster Dog series so its always a thrill to see one of the stars of the show, Mick Hudson and his champion dog Rabbit at work.

The streets of Port Fairy near our Air BnB at 2A Wishart Street in the evening light ........

Port Fairy has an interesting colonial history but I specially admire its honest acknowledgment of the tragedy of First Contact times.

Port Fairy has a beautiful bookstore too ....... Blarney's Books. I would love to have a spare afternoon to spend there one day, browsing through its shelves, settling into one of its many couches for a quiet read and taking the time to examine all the local art works (most with literary themes), lining the walls.

The doggies and their owners started to leave town on Sunday night. We packed up too, ready for an early departure yesterday morning, and the long (920klm) drive back to Canberra. 

We've all decided we're definitely making it back to Port Fairy again next year to have another go at this fabulous weekend full of friendship, food, Jazz ...... and the doggies!