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I had always wanted to do one of the famous long train journeys so as a taster I travelled the 11.5 hour route between Adelaide and Melbourne on The Overland. We left at 7.40am and you had to be there an hour before departure, so it was an early start to the day. The train was not full so there was plenty of opportunity to take a double seat to yourself - they were recliners with small retractable tables, very much like an aircraft seat but with more leg room and much bigger picture-windows that gave a great view of the passing countryside.
The first 90 minutes took us through the outskirts of the city and up into the scenic Adelaide Hills, where we could see large and expensive houses set in pretty forested rolling hills and glimpsed the occasional great view from the top of the hills. The train moved very slowly on this sector and we had to stop a couple of time to let heavy goods trains pass. We went over the Murray River bridge before travelling through Bordertown, Nhill, Dimboola, Horsham, Ararat and Geelong. A guy that had been staying in my hostel come over for
a chat and stayed gossiping for a few hours which helped to make the time fly past. A trolley service came around twice during the journey offering hot and cold drinks and snacks, but there was also a buffet car that sold sandwiches, hot pies and pasties just a couple of carriages away.
The main bulk of the journey was over flat grassland, with sheep and cattle and the occasional mob of kangaroos. The plains were quite boring and went on for hours with little change, so I eventually started to read and then dozed for an hour. As we approached the outskirts of Melbourne it was dark and the city lights were on the horizon. We had to wait 15 minutes for our luggage to be unloaded, then it was only a 5 minute walk to the hotel. The room was tiny, wee, diddy, small and not very big at all, with no window and a strange high skylight in the roof, however it had everything I needed including a TV with a couple of extra channels, so I overdosed on American series during my 4 night stay. It was a luxury being able to watch TV in
bed.
The next day I took advantage of being in the centre of Melbourne city and spent the whole day walking around the shopping streets. I had been impressed on my last visit by the wonderful Victorian arcades with their fancy wrought iron balustrades and I searched them out again and wandered their expensive but interesting boutiques. I also booked up with a guided walking tour the following day to learn more about the architecture of the city and we had a great time viewing the fancy and ornate facades that remain along most of the main roads, even though they front modernised interiors. I also visited the newly opened Docklands shopping area that is packed with fancy restaurants and lots of factory outlet stores. I took advantage of the free City Circle tram that does a large loop around the centre of Melbourne, using it to hop on and off at interesting points - the commentary wasn’t too bad either.
My friend Kim took me to a lovely Japanese restaurant in Federation Square one night and we gorged ourselves on lots of yummy dishes and did a pretty good job with the chopsticks too as we planned
a day out to “Spa Country” north of the city. We left early the following day and headed to the Macedon Ranges with its old mining towns, forest covered hills and cute villages. We stopped near the top of Mount Macedon to walk to the viewpoint and a large memorial cross, where we should have seen the whole valley laid out beneath us. However the weather went crazy for a while (only when we were there) with the wind gusting hard and the clouds descending so that we we shrouded in cold damp mist. We battled up to the lookout and waited for a while while we were buffeted around by the wind, to glimpse nanoseconds worth of views below. It was funny and frustrating but very atmospheric. We were both freezing cold and had chattering teeth by the time we got back to the car so went to the next town and stopped for coffee and cake to warm us up.
We went to the very posh and expensive Lakehouse Restaurant for lunch in Daylesford . It has a beautiful setting above a lake, surrounded by lush trees, flowering shrubs and manicured gardens. Its a famous spa centre
with luxurious cabins sporting balconies extending into the tree tops where you can get massage or body treatments in a woodland setting. The meal was fab, with tasty dishes and all immaculately presented. We both chose a two course lunch, with Kim having a 5-tastes-of-the-sea starter and me having a chocolate, cigar and whiskey dessert - the cigar was made from crisp pastry with a lush chocolate and nut filling and the whiskey was a flavoured jelly in a shot glass. We split and shared the dishes and tasted each others main - mine was venison and Kim had duck - which were amazing. The waiter must have overheard Kim insisting on picking up the bill saying “my treat as its your birthday”, so when my dessert arrived the chef had iced “Happy Birthday” in chocolate along the plate, which was a lovely surprise.
Kim was a Wedding Crasher twice that day, as when we were at the Lakehouse one of her good friends was attending a wedding going on in their beautiful function room and we stopped by to say hello while the bride and groom were off having “mood shots” taken by the lake. Secondly we tried
to make it to the nearby Convent Gallery before it closed, but were too late. So when we wandered around the back to see if the chapel was still open, we arrived at another wedding just as the bride and groom were getting ready to leave the venue. It was a shame that we couldn’t see the art gallery but we had lingered too long over the delicious lunch.
We passed Hanging Rock (made famous by the film Picnic At Hanging Rock) on the way to our next stop where we had a quick look at the spas at Hepburn Springs, a lovely area with grand houses, opulent gardens and a sweet little village with interesting boutiques. It was a lovely day out and although it was a few days early, it was a lovely birthday present. I was sad to bid farewell to Kim, but I left Melbourne the following day to fly the short 4.5 hour hop to Perth to see my wonderful family. The weather had been very mixed in Melbourne with some warm sun and lots of rainy interludes, but when I got to Perth it was glorious without a cloud in the sky, temperatures
in the mid 20’s and a similar forecast for the whole week to come.
It has been wonderful seeing both of my amazing daughters and my 6 beautiful and entertaining grandchildren. I will be doing lots of family stuff and trying to squeeze in as many hugs and cuddles as possible in this short visit, but I am only going to be writing briefly about the outings and special events with them over the next 6 weeks, as its not really entertaining blog material to read about other people’s family stuff. So please bear with me if the blog entries are not as frequent, regular or long as normal.
On my actual birthday my younger daughter Kim treated me to a home-cooked roast lamb dinner with all the trimmings (super yum) and then after we had been to watch the kids at their judo lesson we stopped at Baskin Robins for outrageous and decadent ice creams, which we decided was far better than a boring old birthday cake. The following day we drove down an hour south of Perth to Mandurah to see my older daughter Stacey and her two handsome and talented boys, where we were treated
to champagne.
Kim and I are off for a two week trip to Bali next, so I will be posting about our adventures there soon.
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