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Published: November 5th 2012
Iron Fence, Daylesford
Entrance to the town hall.On our last day in the gold mining country, our friend took us to Daylesford, a resort and spa town founded in 1852. Full of places where you can get such services as massages, reiki, shiatsu, acupuncture, aromatherapy, reflexology, spiritual healing, and tarot readings, it is definitely the funkiest of the little towns that we went to. We visited stores along main street and ate lunch in a former convent that’s been converted into an art gallery (I had Greek Salad with grilled calamari – once again proving that Australian calamari is THE best I’ve ever had). Our waitress was from New Zealand. Loud and joyful, she took such good care of us, insisting that we try the sticky date pudding for dessert.
After lunch we drove down to the spa situated in a valley. Both historic and modern, it featured paths through the woods (where we saw the bird pictured here), spigots where you could directly drink the mineral water (naturally sparkling!), and a new glass and wood structure that housed the spa – two warm swimming pools, one deeper, and a shallower one with jets. You could put your arms on the side of the pools, and with
Only in Australia
Beer...Australian for breakfast! your chin resting on your arms, look out through the glass onto a hillside wooded with eucalyptus trees.
After an hour and a half of this, we dragged ourselves away from the warm water, and headed into the country outside Daylesford to have dinner with two of our host’s friends. Aside from holding koala bears earlier in the day, this was definitely one of the highlights of our time in Australia so far. A simple but lovely house, about 15 minutes out of town, with plum trees, a heavily laden lemon tree, a spring garden with rhubarb, squash, carrots, and a wide assortment of other vegetables, and when the sun started to go down, wild kangaroos in the pasture across the road. Our host handed us a set of binoculars, and standing out by the front gate, the coolness and freshness of the country evening air enveloping us, we watched as kangaroos jumped over the fence into the pasture (one went under - we were unimpressed), feeding as they went. Common as kangaroos are here (we saw dead kangaroos by the side of the road every day until we went into Melbourne), we were all hushed as we watched
Round about
This sits at the top of the main road. The sky was THAT blue (and that big, for that matter!). the mob (a group of kangaroos) move across the pasture.
Our hosts told us stories about watching adult kangaroos boxing on the hillside – and then a less cute story of their elderly neighbor who was accosted by an older male kangaroo who had apparently been thrown out of the mob. The neighbor was working in his shed when the angry kangaroo hopped in. Not wanting to be boxed, the neighbor grabbed the kangaroo’s arms, holding them down. Using the man as a counterweight, the kanga then jumped and brought the sharp nails of his large feet across the man’s chest and belly, cutting him (he survived).
Dinner (cashew nut kafta in a tomato sauce) was followed by a large tray of fruit, cheese and crackers, including fresh passion fruit, which was a first for me. It was a wonderful end to a full day that had begun by petting koalas and kangaroos in a nature preserve and ended with watching wild kangaroos in their natural habitat. Thrilling!
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