A City Farm house

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Here we are in Geelong having the luxury of a house to ourselves! We have just realised that other than our camping trip by the Ganges and one night at Aggra, we have been staying with friends or friends of friends since leaving home so enjoying the space to do "normal stuff"! We arrived in Melbourne on the 9th of Jan and were met at the airport by Megan - a mutual friend had insisted that we meet up and of course everyone does what Claire tells them! So, we stayed with Megan in Werribee for three nights before driving in our very beaten up rental car to Daylesford for the Boite Singers Festival. (This is whats great about singing and travelling ... it takes you to places well off the tourist track and gets you to meet folk you wouldn't normally have the chance to spend time with...). Megan was just one of these folk - a lovely woman who took us swimming in the Yarra River and pointed us in the direction of Warrabee Open Range Zoo which was fantastic! On the road to Daylesford we stopped for "a picnic at hanging rock" and a glimpse of our first koala and a very laid back kangaroo that lay by our car in the carpark and fell asleep...! Hanging Rock was pretty spectacular and offered a good hour of "clambering" before hitting the quaint town of Daylesford which seems to recently have had a face lift and become quite cosmopolitan with its coffee houses, deli's and book shops. A great location for the Festival which is small, intimate and therefore very participatory... about 200 folk book on to various workshops and sing their socks off. A couple of concerts by the workshop leaders and then a final sharing of songs to finish the event..... everyone then met for a BBQ by the River as a farewell. Very gentle and a thoroughly enjoyable weekend - I even joined in with one workshop and ended up buying a yukalali (cant even spell it far less play it!).... and surprised myself by not being too ham fisted!

Geelong is the home of Adam who worked with us at Whitewave in 97 so we are enjoying his families hospitality by staying in grannys house - originally an old farmhouse surrounded by fields and now sits in suburbia! On the road south we stopped at Annakie Gorge which really brought home to us the reality of bush fires as this parkland had been burnt through a year ago with loss to homes and wildlife. The area was reopened to visitors last October and shows lots of regrowth but very surreal to be walking through what should be heavy bush and being surrounded by blackened roots and stumps. There is a lot of talk about bush fire and also the problems of water shortage. Each day the skies cloud over with heavy smoke coming from miles and miles away but everyone is very aware of the problems its brings, especially with the weather hitting 40 degrees...... Yesterday was so hot it was eventually even too warm for the beach!!

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