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Published: November 18th 2011
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Saturday morning (12th November) was a bit harum-scarum - Daphne dashed off to do her usual Saturday morning shop at Camberwell market. Before that though I went with her to the local pet shop to make sure we had the right type of food for a young kitten. Mickey was being fed adult cat food some of the time which probably wasn’t good for him, not that Mickey seemed to be suffering in any way – he was just as manic as ever!! After that Graham and I scanned the garden to see if there was any “hard” rubbish we could put out for collection. Once a year the council do a collection of things that can’t be disposed of through the normal rubbish collection process. Consequently, all sorts of stuff suddenly appears on the side of the road – some of it in pretty good condition – and some entrepreneurial people drive by and take anything that’s useful and then the council come and take what’s left. In truth we could probably have put a lorry load out just from Daphne’s garage but we contented ourselves with putting out an old table and half a dozen old garden chairs. There
were a few other tempting things but Daphne had it in mind to restore them so we left them alone. This afternoon we are all going into the city on the tram – Daphne to visit the opera symposium she watched part of yesterday, and us to mooch about in Federation Square. Everything went well - Daphne arrived in good time for her opera festival and we spent quite a while simply meandering around watching the various street entertainers. I was tempted by the display of aboriginal art in a nearby centre so we spent some time looking at the magnificent paintings. It was a huge centre and we could easily have filled the remainder of the afternoon there but we decided to leave the rest for another day. We strolled towards the river, passing the opera festival on the way, and then made our way to Southbank where we found a nice café for some tea and cake. More street entertainers kept us amused for a while longer and then we returned to Flinders Street from where the tram took us back to Daphne’s – well, within 300 meters anyway. We were amused, given our main topic of conversation
lately, by the number of weddings taking place in the city centre and in various parks on the way back to Camberwell – we must have spotted six or seven – Melbourne is obviously THE place to get married! The journey back was straightforward – unlike on a weekday the trams on a Saturday are generally not so busy making for a much more pleasant journey and we were soon settled back in at Daphne’s preparing dinner. We waited until Daphne returned, which was only 20 minutes or so later, to see if she would also want dinner but she had already eaten. Another lengthy Skype conversation with Sarah took place – it’s such a help to us being able to make contact so easily – and, after preparing for a short trip away, we went to bed.
On Sunday 13th November we loaded up the car with enough clothes etc to see us through a few days away at a friend’s holiday home. Unfortunately Daphne had re-arranged a house-party for this week otherwise she would have come with us. But the party and the need to keep an eye on mad Mickey, the new kitten, meant she will
A great place for people to meet
The famous Melbourne trams run nearby and Flinders Street Station is just across the road miss this trip but she will be able to come with us when we visit the same house for a full week in December. We’re away for just a few days this time and we need to travel through the heart of Melbourne and then undertake a three hour drive to Peterborough, a small town on the “far end” of The Great Ocean Road. We bade Daphne farewell at about 10:00am and set off on the city centre freeway – a toll-road which makes a journey through Melbourne and beyond really simple – it’s brilliant. Our next signpost destination was Geelong which we had always thought of as an extended suburb of Melbourne. Actually it’s a considerable distance away from Melbourne and a substantial city in its own right and one which we will make a point of visiting at some time. But today it just happened to be in the right direction though we were to by-pass it and to travel towards the large town of Colac. We’ve not been to Colac before but it came at an ideal time for a lunch break. We found a delightful cafe and had a nice lunch before visiting the nearby Coles
supermarket to stock up on all the things we would need for our 4 day break. Afterwards we drove on to the more rural and very much smaller town of Timboon, a place we have visited before albeit 10 years ago. We passed through Timboon and followed some even smaller roads in order to reach the small coastal village of Peterborough. On approach it looked absolutely delightful and we couldn’t believe our luck that we had the opportunity to stay here in a friend’s holiday home. We found our way along a short gravel road to the house which has recently undergone some extensive redevelopment. If we felt lucky to be in Peterborough then we were overwhelmed by the house - it’s absolutely magnificent. It’s big enough to accommodate a dozen people comfortably and to have it at our disposal is a dream come true. We’ll return in a few weeks’ time with Daphne and even then, with three of us, we’ll be able to stretch out and have a relaxing time. Peterborough is well placed between the slightly larger town of Port Campbell and the much larger city of Warrnambool, both of which we have visited before. Strangely, the
stretch of road between those two places is a part we’ve never explored so we’ll be able to investigate the small coastal bays and beaches with their picturesque beauty and their history of by-gone shipping tragedies. After settling in we had a short drive around the area just to familiarise ourselves with the lay-out and we were impressed. We drifted as far as Port Campbell – just 10 kilometers away – and visited a couple of the ocean lookouts on the way back. It looked delightful and we’re sure we will enjoy ourselves here. We selected one of the many bedrooms for our short stay and settled in for a satisfying night’s sleep.
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Darryl and Sarah
Wallaby Wanderers
Perfect Peterborough!
We're so glad you love Peterborough, we knew you would! The weather wasn't quite that brilliant when we were there and the house wasn't quite that huge - sounds like Julies building has gone really well! Enjoy your stay :-) x x x x