Meandering near Melbourne

Well, this blog was never going to be written every day! And once I’m on the trip to New York, who know how often I’ll be able to access the internet and send it on its way.

Australia is beautiful, and hot, and pretty wet on occasion too. A week ago I went to the beach, forgot water and a hat, set off at about 1pm and got home about 3.30. Can’t you just tell a Brit abroad?!! There I was in the mind-blowing heat of early afternoon, hurrying from shady tree to shady tree on the road home, gasping for water and putting ‘mind over matter’ into practice. When I finally staggered through the door, Jo and Lucy were home and getting ready to go out…to the beach. Did I want to go? Well, might give it a miss…

Next day, we did it properly: all four of us, in the cool of the morning off to the beach again. Beautiful! A cool breeze, delicious water and lot of shells and sea glass to be gathered.

Since then we’ve been up to Daylesford (quite near Castlemaine) in the goldfields area – just for the day – to see a Gay Pride march, drink more coffee, explore more cake. It’s a beautiful part of the country, quite different from the Mornington Peninsula with its beaches and vineyards. But the one thing the two areas seem to have in common is their artists’ communities. Daylesford is full of great little shops selling local crafts of all sorts, plus a few galleries and lots of cafes. A nice place to live. The house Ben and Jo were planning to buy is not too far from here, and had a good plot of land attached. But things change, and they knew they would miss being by the sea, so the move is off. Friends are actually throwing them a party next weekend to celebrate not moving!

Ben and I took a bus one day out to Mt Martha, a pretty little place with expensive real estate… more great cafes…and a lot of beach and sailing boats. The great thing about buses is their height off the ground, enabling you to inspect people’s gardens and swimming pools usually hidden behind fencing. I have always been amazed at the tiny gardens most people have here – you’d think they’d have massive ones in Australia. But land is so expensive, especially in the city, or in the sought-after areas on the coast, that most people prefer to build the biggest house they can on their plot, and make do with very little outside space. You can see that lots of older properties have larger gardens, but also that many of them have obviously sold off part of their land as there are occasionally modern bungalows slotted in between the older houses.

The names of villages here on the coast are interesting: Mt Martha, Mt Eliza, Rosebud….! So I googled the last one, expecting it to be an original settler’s wife or daughter, and found the story of a ship, ‘The Rosebud’, that foundered and sank just offshore about 150 years ago. The settlers were pretty poor and lacking in pretty much everything, so salvaged what they could: wooden beams for their houses and for furniture, linen and other materials for clothing, and so on. Word got around the area and people came from farther inland to see what they could get their hands on and it became the thing to ‘go to Rosebud’. And so the name stuck.

The farthest south I’ve been so far has to be The Peninsula Hot Springs – a fantastic evening out! We drove about an hour south (much farther and we’d have dropped off the end of Australia) and into this hidden-away beautiful spot. After a lovely meal, we changed into our cossies and took to the pools. The first one was pleasantly warm and I could have stayed there forever, but with lots of others to try out, we moved on. Ben and Jo were regulars at one time but hadn’t been for a while. The next pool was too hot – rather like the Bear’s Porridge – I only managed to go in to just over my knees. But the third pool, farther up the hillside, was magic! Just the right temperature, eucalyptus branches overhanging and exuding their scent, the sky darkening, stars twinkling through the trees…You get the picture?! After that we tried out several more, and the sauna, and finally got out of the water after 3 hours. When we got home I Skyped Victoria but had to hand over to Ben as I was so drowsy I could barely speak! If this is what hot springs are like, then roll on Alaska!

So what else has been happening? An hour-long train trip to Melbourne the day before yesterday – I love my Kindle! Hours spent in the National Gallery and Melbourne Library where they have a fantastic exhibition of children’s book illustrators; wandering along Bourke Street and drinking in the Art Deco buildings – above the levels of the shops, that is. And Melbourne has fantastic arcades – just like Cardiff!

I have another two or three trips planned before I leave. Use up my Metcards! Watch this space….