Thanks to the Queen

Hello good readers.

Since our holiday to Fiij we haven’t had chance to do much that was worth blogging about, until, that is, the Queen’s birthday weekend a few weeks back.

We had been asked to go away with some friends and stay with them in a place called Eildon, a few hours away from Geelong and north of Melbourne. It was situated at the bottom of a long mountain range that runs through a large part of Australia, and the part that goes through Victoria gets a lot of snow (I know what ya thinking, snow in Australia; but it’s true). The journey to Eildon took a little longer than expected due to some, “I know where I’m going” moments. However, after some small detours through some beautiful Australian scenery (getting a little lost does have its benefits) we arrived at our abode just as the sun was setting. After a little bit of unpacking we were all sitting in front of a gloriously warm log fire eating a roast beef dinner. Bed time didn’t take long to show itself and before long the house was filled with the sounds of people sleeping.

Saturday started very cold and with a whisper in my ear telling me to get up and go to the veranda to see something I wasn’t expecting: A huge amount of King Parrots being hand fed. It was amazing to see so many of them in one place and tame enough to feed out of your hand. Whilst this was going on kookaburras, cockatoos and rosellas also made an appearance. It was a mesmerising way to start the day. After a light breakfast we set out to do some sightseeing and visited a noisy and picturesque waterfall just outside of a town called Marysville and although the waterfall was a great attraction it was the small village of Marysville that stuck in my mind the most because it felt out of place. It had a plastic feel to it, like it wasn’t meant to be there. It also had an eerie feel to it. After a few chats to our friends I found out that this village / town had been burnt to the ground a couple of years earlier during the Black Saturday fires of 2009 (the year that I landed in Australia and watched these events on national TV). Nothing had been spared during that tragic event and Marysville was turned to embers and dust. The vegetation around it looked like it had been given up on, like someone had started out with all the right intentions of creating a floral masterpiece and then got bored and left half-way through. Trees were covered in a fine growth that resembled camouflaged webbing, but just like camouflaged webbing it couldn’t hide the truth once you got up close enough to see through it. Marysville was still being built and had a super-modern feel and look to it but felt out of place because of where it was: in the middle of the Australian bush. A 21st Century town trying to fill the shoes of a 19th Century one. It had a spooky feel to it and seemed staged. However, it was still a beautiful place to walk around and had an excellent lolly shop that sold a lot of English sweets. The rest of the day was spent checking out other local landmarks and vantage points and was finished off with a dinner in a typically Australian diner that was serving Asian cuisine because it was owned and run by Asians (impersonation time again).

Sunday was reserved for the ladies to go horse riding and the men to explore a little more of this area. So, after, another hearty breakfast we were on our way to drop the girls off at one of Australia’s more renowned horse riding establishments (being a bloke I can’t remember any more than that, although they did have something to do with the famous story, ‘The Man from Snowy River’). Once they were on their way the blokes went off exploring and trying to get as close to the snow-capped mountains as we could. This excited me no end since I was still intrigued by seeing snow in a country renowned for its hot weather, but see it I did. Large mountains jutted up into the blue sky with peaks blanketed in snow. Fantastic! The rest of the countryside, as amazing as it was in the mid-winter sun, paled in comparison to the jagged mountain range that stretched off into the distance. After taken a bundle of photos we just had enough time to pop into a nearby village for a bite to eat before we had to race off and pick up the girls from their trek. After a short wait at the stables the intrepid riders trotted into view and, once dismounted, recanted their stories of sheer enjoyment and wonder, and continued them as we drove back to the house via some more stunning attraction and vantage points.

Our last day of the long weekend was departure day. We had had a fantastic time exploring another part of this wonderful country and was eager to see some more of this area, but that will have to wait for another day.

BFN lovely readers.