Our road trip from Geelong to Mildura last Tuesday was all new territory for us: 6 hours of driving, bypassing Ballarat, then through Avoca, a good bakery visit at St Arnaud, then kilometres of tough dry flat Mallee country before arriving in the river port town of Mildura in far NW Victoria.
We stayed at the beautiful property of Rod's friends Kev and Julie in Mildura. This was our first sight of their back garden - on the banks of the tranquil Murray River.
The view from their houseboat - Tuesday afternoon.......
I got the shot of the rower, but missed getting the shot of the pelicans in flight.
A view of Kev and Julie's house from the houseboat...
Wednesday morning view of the river .....
These beautiful, ancient River Red Gums line the banks of the Murray. The bark on this one was cut for canoe making by the local Aboriginal people - how many hundreds of years ago?
The Art Vault in Mildura is Julie's passion project. We were fascinated by our personal tour of this amazing gallery and its state of the art print workshops, studios and artists' residences.
These enormous palms are quite a feature of the Mildura streetscapes .....
The historic old Grand Hotel is now owned by the Carrazza family. It's a real landmark in the centre of town - and has quite the L.A. vibe with those palm trees and its Art Deco era detailing.
We had a wonderful dinner at the iconic Stefano's which is in the former underground cellars of the old hotel. Social distancing meant it was a very quiet night at the normally buzzy restaurant, but the set menu meal was wonderful.
The parklands along the river are extensive in this town but seeing the workings of the locks up close made us much more aware of the water management issues along this mighty (but depleted) river.
We were so lucky to be invited to the last lunch cruise on Kev and Julie's houseboat on Saturday. It's being sold ...... and this was Julie's last chance to steer the boat out of its moorings and head upstream along the river ......
These boats are harder to steer than you'd think......
Another amazing lunch - all cooked in the houseboat kitchen (there's no roughing it on this boat!)
The boat was moored at a wild spot on the river while we enjoyed lunch - it was so tranquil, with bird life all around us.
There are some beautiful properties along the river. This house is a bit of a standout - it belongs to the Carrazza family (of Grand Hotel and Stefano's fame).
Kev and Julie must have had very mixed feelings on this happy day. The houseboat has brought them many happy times and good memories.
They were wonderful warm and generous hosts for our Mildura stay. We would love to come back now we know more of its charms - and heard of more trips we could do (relatively) near by!
With COVID-19 restrictions easing from the 1st June we jumped at the chance to head south (across two borders) to see Ros and Pete again in Geelong. We got here on Friday and Ros wasted no time getting us booked into one of the few higher end restaurants that were open for service (for a maximum of 20 people) over the long weekend. 360Q has a beautiful setting dockside at the Queenscliff Ferry Terminal. On a clear day you'd be able to see clear across Port Phillip Bay from its beautiful dining area - but on Saturday it was grey and drizzly and visibility was not so good.
But our meal was wonderful and the staff were so happy to be open again (it was their first day open since COVID began) - and with only 20 people to serve. Here we are enjoying our entree: pork Bao and asian salad.... yummy!
Ros knew there was wonderful fresh seafood to be had from one of the boats moored at the docks.
We were able to get Coffin Bay oysters and the fattest tastiest prawns from Mooloolaba from the boat.
And this is the fresh seafood lunch we sat down to yesterday - AMAZING quality; prawns like that rarely got to the domestic market in more normal times. Lucky us!
It was a lovely opportunity to see some of the extended family too this weekend. Sam and Lili have had little trouble coping with school at home for the past 8-10 weeks (thank you Mummy) and they were their usual bouncy selves despite all the recent upheavals.
This girl shows every sign of having the L. family gene for talent and creativity (and beautiful dimples).
Ros and Pete are wonderful hosts and great company. They organised today's fabulous feast from Sakura Tei in Newtown - some of the best sushi and sashimi we've eaten! When there's little else to do and not much open, then let's eat!
Apart from feasting, laughing (and a few tears too), talking and card playing we tried to do a bit of walking each day while dodging cloud cover and bouts of drizzle. We made it as far as Buckley Falls (at the back of the old paper mill) on two mornings - rather spectacular considering this is basically in the Geelong 'burbs.
On our first morning here we did a bridge to bridge circuit of this end of the Barwon River. Pete's able to join us on these morning jaunts too - on his slightly unreliable push bike.
Ros and Pete live in such a lovely part of the world, and the place they have made for themselves is so lovely too - we are always to happy to see them; here's hoping it wasn't be too long until the next time now we are in the next phase of the "new normal".
It's Reconciliation Week here (from the 27 May - 3 June) - but commemorated very differently this year to past years (another COVID-19 effect).
It's 20 years ago this year since we joined the first historic Peoples Walk for Reconciliation across Sydney Harbour Bridge on 28 May 2000, together with about 300,000 other people in what is now described as the largest political demonstration ever held in Australia.
It took 6 hours for the huge crowd to cross the bridge at walking pace. It was a peaceful and joyous day - and the size of the crowd surprised everyone.
We all cheered when this was written across the sky above us - a direct rebuke to the government of the day for refusing to apologise to the Stolen Generations, as recommended by the Bringing Them Home Report (26 May 1997).
It was an emotional moment for us when we got our first glimpse of the Aboriginal flag flying proudly on Sydney Harbour Bridge for the first time ........
At the start of the walk, Milson's Point - not a great picture but my little bit of history from 2020!
All of Canberra's Reconciliation Week events had to be changed this year with no chances for people to "Walk Together" in a physical sense.
But we made it down to the lake two nights over the weekend - for a little sunset reverie at our National Carillon which had been illuminated with different art works each night created by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, on the theme of Reconciliation.
to a background of this magnificence ......
We took Ollie and Angus with us on Saturday night for that evening's light show ......
The stay COVID-19 safe sign in the background of this shot will give it a historical context!
We have made a certain progress towards Reconciliation over the past 20 years - especially amongst our young people... but still SO FAR to go!
The view from their houseboat - Tuesday afternoon.......
I got the shot of the rower, but missed getting the shot of the pelicans in flight.
A view of Kev and Julie's house from the houseboat...
Wednesday morning view of the river .....
These beautiful, ancient River Red Gums line the banks of the Murray. The bark on this one was cut for canoe making by the local Aboriginal people - how many hundreds of years ago?
The Art Vault in Mildura is Julie's passion project. We were fascinated by our personal tour of this amazing gallery and its state of the art print workshops, studios and artists' residences.
These enormous palms are quite a feature of the Mildura streetscapes .....
The historic old Grand Hotel is now owned by the Carrazza family. It's a real landmark in the centre of town - and has quite the L.A. vibe with those palm trees and its Art Deco era detailing. 
We had a wonderful dinner at the iconic Stefano's which is in the former underground cellars of the old hotel. Social distancing meant it was a very quiet night at the normally buzzy restaurant, but the set menu meal was wonderful. 
The parklands along the river are extensive in this town but seeing the workings of the locks up close made us much more aware of the water management issues along this mighty (but depleted) river. 
We were so lucky to be invited to the last lunch cruise on Kev and Julie's houseboat on Saturday. It's being sold ...... and this was Julie's last chance to steer the boat out of its moorings and head upstream along the river ......
These boats are harder to steer than you'd think......
Another amazing lunch - all cooked in the houseboat kitchen (there's no roughing it on this boat!)
The boat was moored at a wild spot on the river while we enjoyed lunch - it was so tranquil, with bird life all around us.
There are some beautiful properties along the river. This house is a bit of a standout - it belongs to the Carrazza family (of Grand Hotel and Stefano's fame).
Kev and Julie must have had very mixed feelings on this happy day. The houseboat has brought them many happy times and good memories.
