Buchan Caves Reserve in East Gippsland is just one system of hundreds of caves (allegedly) in this neck of the woods that are chocka block full of incredible limestone formations. Royal Cave and Fairy Cave are both open to the public via tours, and there’s a bunch of walks to be done in the immediate area. There’s accommodation and picnic areas, a kiosk and even an underground breeding habitat for platypus. You’re never gonna see that though so don’t even bother looking for it. Very secretive, the platypus folk. Might be a cult.​

Anyway, you may now enjoy this small sample of my poor substitute for our visual experience.

The final drive down to the valley was steep, windy and a bit pot-holey so we were surprised when we arrived at the bottom to find a couple of big caravan rigs set up, complete with grey nomads indulging in pre-dinner drinks under their little verandahs.  Or maybe they'd just arrived and the drinks were to steady their nerves.

We had our own nerve steadying drink while we meandered around the area, kicking the ground and discussing where the tent should go.  Decision made, we got onto our camp set up chores and before we knew it, we were making dinner and considering a second beverage. Ha ha - just kidding. Of course we weren't considering it - we were just having it!

Friday was hot, so after our visit to Buchan Caves (yes, yes...we'll get to that), we treated ourselves to a swim in the Snowy River and a cheeky beverage. Fortunately the river was only a few minutes walk via a variety of paths, because it was hot. And we're lazy. 

Late Monday afternoon we were having a wander and photographing various things when the thick clouds that had been rolling in started getting darker and a few rumbles of thunder got underway.  Adopting a typical Australian "nah, that'll blow over in a minute" attitude, we ignored the thunder and continued along our merry way until things got considerably darker, louder and a little more flashier.  As in - the lightning started. Both of us had tripods set up, so we figured the smart thing to do would be to shelve them because neither of us fancied being fried for a photograph. Shortly after making this clever decision, it started to rain. And not just a bit of rain - great big fat plops of rain that heralded the deluge that was about to see us retreat indoors for the rest of the evening.  And of course, we had ventured far enough away from camp to be quite wet by the time we got back.

The rain continued throughout the night and I awoke from a dream where I was floating on my airbed inside the tent because it was flooded, and everything from the campsite was also floating because the water was really high....and then the whole tent turned into a makeshift boat and joined the rivers which were by now teaming with other tent-boats as all the campers floated downstream.

​And then I turned into a giant ice cream and woke up because I was cold.

The delightful folk at Alto Build (https://www.altobuild.com.au/) engaged me to shoot an unassuming Carlton terrace, which of course turned out to be huge inside and beautifully renovated.  After much negotiating about when to shoot, a date was finally decided. And as if the weather gods had heard, it rained. Oh well. At least most of the photography required was inside!
​

But first one must do the work. Then (and only then), can the restocking begin. I hate shopping *sigh* so I avoid it as much as possible.  I just restock stuff I already have that's wearing out. This is why I have fourteen interchangeable socks.

Ok, the last one isn't in the city, but it's of the city...which is close enough!

Woodlands has been around forever, but has only been a public park since the early 1980s. It’s about 700 hectares (so it’s allegedly just a bit bigger than Gibraltar), and has an old homestead from the 1840s, a myriad of walking/biking/horseriding trails, picnic/barbeque areas, abundant bird and wildlife and a smashing lookout from atop Gellibrand Hill. 

Go in summer if you want to experience all that season has to offer - cooking under a hot sun, being eaten by mozzies, possibly chased by an angry mob of heat-stroke affected roos. Or, just look at these very summery like pictures and imagine it's 35°C.

By the way, did you know female kangaroos can put their pregnancies on hold? It's just another way mother nature accommodates children that stay home longer than their parents would like!

First launched in 2014, the festival is a feast of illuminated signs and artworks and is held in Central Park gardens, Malvern East from dusk(ish) until ten(ish).  The sun was well gone by the time we arrived so it was quite dark and the evening was in full swing. We wandered around oohing and aaahhing and generally behaving like excited 4 year olds and the only bummer about the evening was.....no donuts! Boo!

Mandylights are really good at creating light based productions and stage sets (think Vivid Sydney, Auckland’s Harbour Bridge Vector Lights, that sort of thing), and this is very cool. From a distance, the Wonderdome just looks like thousands of tiny lights hanging in the sky. Then they start to move and pulsate, converging and changing colour over and over.  It's a party in a dome!

Building projection specialists The Electric Canvas gave us Secrets of the Golden Elm Tree – twinkly, shimmery lighting goodness projected onto the trunk and branches of the tree. These guys do White Night Melbourne, various stadium events and Sydney Opera House projections (eg: Vivid, Diwali, Remembrance Day) so lighting a tree was probably a 5 minute job for them.

Art group The Indirect Object created Minor Disturbance – an installation of sculptures, light and soundscape that explores the ocean and the plastics that have made their way into it. The sculptures are made using recycled plastics.

String Symphony by Leon Hendroff/Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is a giant marionette contorted via 12 ropes operated by volunteers and Glow punters. There’s 600 odd LED lights and over a kilometre of rope bringing this bloke to life.

And last but not least, inflatables! Coloured Inflatables! With lights in them! Yay!  Pilbara artists Sharon and Kaye Warrie teamed up with Goldberg Aberline Studio to create Red Air, a celebration of the Pilbara Desert landscape.

We motored merrily down the M1 towards Gippsland, fought the urge to stop at Gumbuya Park (to see if anyone had blown the arse out of the Big Pheasant again), then fought another urge to stop at Bunyip Cemetery (to see if there really are bunyips buried there), and finally arrived at our first stop - the Noojee Trestle Bridge.

Surrounded by mountain ash forest, the old bridge stands at about 20 metres high and is the tallest surviving bridge of its type in Victoria. It meanders along the old Noojee railway line for 100 metres and has a large grassy area underneath - perfect for picnics. It's really peaceful (it's a bit off the highway) although it can get busy as it's part of the Noojee Trestle Bridge Rail Trail. 

After a good ramble, we headed off north of Noojee to Toroongo Falls. There's a bush campground nearby but as we were only day tripping, I can't tell you what it's like beyond it being sandwiched between Toorongo Valley Rd and Toorongo River. It looked like a fairly big cleared space between a couple of hills and I might have spotted a dunny.

Toorongo Valley Rd ends at Toorongo Falls Reserve - the start of the Falls Walk. You can guess where this is going.

We wandered along gentle idyllic pathways and laboured up the steeper bits, listening for lyrebirds and taking pictures, and were rewarded with views (and sound!) of the tiered Toorongo Falls in full flight. This is really a relatively easy walk - wet underfoot and sometimes slippy. The main viewing point gets really close to the falls and if it's windy, you'll probably get a bit wet. Just think of it as horizontal rain. The circuit walk also takes in Amphitheatre Falls which are quite little in comparison, but it's a short walk so just do it!

Depending on how often you stop and how long you gaup at things, you can probably do the circuit walk in an hour. Probably less if you're a bit cold and you run some of it.

I won't bore you with another run down of all the delights of the Garden (coz you can read about the time I last went here), suffice to say that this time the cafe was open, the food and coffee was good and the waterway along the Escarpment Wall Sculpture was in full gush mode and kids couldn't resist walking in it.  Even though the water was cold!

Kids are very definitely odd.

I had decided, very last minute, to drive over 100kms towards Barwon Heads in a bid to possibly see the Southern Lights that were supposedly going to light up the night sky with a glittering array of colour. Note the words ‘possibly’ and ‘supposedly’.  I really hadn’t done any planning for this jaunt but the Aurora KP index level (no, I don’t know what it means beyond 0 for ‘no lights’ and 9 for ‘awesome display, get outside now’) was high enough to warrant a 5 minute ‘should I or shouldn’t I?’ conversation with Him On The Couch at midnight (told you it was last minute).

‘Yes I should’, we decided so I coffee’d up while I packed gear, thermals and snacks into the car, and snuck off 20 minutes later.

A nearly full moon wasn’t going to do me any favours but what the hell, eh? It might happen that I see something or it might not. And nothing ventured = nothing gained.  So I planted myself in the dunes at the back of Thirteenth Beach, looking towards the ocean/Torquay and set myself up to be cold and vigilant for the next couple of hours.  I wasn't expecting much, particularly as the KP number had started decreasing, and I wasn't disappointed.

The weather and the moon did exactly as predicted. The temperature went down to 5°C, and the moon set just before 5am.  But was there any sign of an aurora? Ummmm...no. Nothing. Not even the faintest hint of colour, even in the darkest parts of the sky. And certainly not on the camera sensor, as evidenced by the hundred or so photos that were just sky, stars and moon glow.

And so, having prevented death by hypothermia by jumping up and down a lot, eating muesli bars and wearing everything I own, I cranked up the car's heating and went home.

I didn't know there was a South & a North Deborah, or that there was one called Deborah Extended. Must've run out of inclination to come up with unique names.  What I do know (now) is that you can have a wander around the surface museum, climb up the poppet head for an ace view of Bendigo, and see a big old gold nugget (replica). Oh, and it's free. Yay!

Central Deborah operated from 1939 til 1954, reached over 400m underground and apparently had the best working conditions for the time because hot showers were available for the miners.

This massive bit of machinery (up there, on the right) is what gets peeps up and down the mine shaft.  The Winder was installed in 1945 and is the only working example left in Australia. It's still used by the staff who maintain the underground workings and it's kept in good nick because no bugger wants to get stuck down a mine shaft.

For the history buffs among you, it was apparently a Margaret Kennedy who first found gold in Bendigo Creek (because you  know...stuff doesn't get done unless a woman does it) and next thing you know - 20 thousand people turn up ready to dig up half the state looking for a fortune.

I'm sure poor old Margaret had no idea what she'd just kicked off.  Bendigo ended up being a major gold producing area so it went from being a little settlement to a bustling township in no time. Remember the Chinese folk that came to find their fortunes? They called it Dai Gum San.  That's Big Gold Mountain to those of us who don't parlay any of the Chinese dialects.

It's a serene little place made up of Chinese architecture, sculpture, colourful murals and a lotus/fish pond based on some gardens in the Beijing Imperial Palace.  You might think "that's very nice but what's it got to do with tattoos and/or Bendigo". And the answer is: tattoos? Nothing.  Bendigo? Lots.

Bendigo has had a large Chinese population going back as far as the 1850's when lots of Chinese came to Australia to try their luck on the gold fields.  Many came to central Victoria and have stayed through the generations, contributing to the city, country and way of life.

For a long time the three of us had talked about getting matching ink but hadn't settled on anything in particular. Flashie (who is a tattoo virgin at this point) had hit on the idea of a little flamingo on the inside of our wrists - an idea we all loved, but what sort of flamingo? Elaborate, full colour or outline? Cartoon or natural? And why flamingos?

It's about friendship. Boston Legal aficionados will understand. For the rest of you, imagine two blokes who end each work day sitting on a balcony, drinking booze, smoking cigars and dissecting the day. Now imagine them going to an office party dressed as flamingos. Now imagine 3 chicks doing it (we didn't, but we so totally would).

                   Alan (James Spader):         You ever wonder if you and I are la-la?
                   Denny (William Shatner):  Don't be ridiculous. We're flamingos. And good ones.

Flash came up with a great design that we all immediately loved and Jake was the man chosen to do the deed.

Brave Flashie went first.  She was completely unfazed - just sat down and offered her arm to Jake who mischievously grinned and declared he'd try not to chop off the wrong bit! 

Half an hour later, we were done and dusted and out the door, forever changed yet still the same three idiots we'd always been!

Flashie and I have blow up single mattresses for camping for two reasons: 1) we like to be somewhat comfortable and 2) we're princesses. There seems to be two schools of thought for the blow up mattress: those in favour and those against, including the naysayers who claim their mattresses get "full of cold air from the ground, so I'm just sleeping on cold air" to which I say "You're not doing it right, you nufty".

The trick is to have insulating layers and the first of these is on the ground, underneath the blow up.  One of those thin foam roll up numbers (with a foil coating on one side) goes under the blow up and stops cold air seeping in. It also protects the blow up from anything on the ground/tent base that might puncture it. Whether you go foil down or foil up is up to you. I've tried both (thinking foil down will reflect rising cold air away from the blow up / foil up will keep my own heat radiated towards me) - I honestly couldn't tell the difference either way.  Having the foam on top of the blow up is also an option (definitely foil up in this situation). I imagine that my own body heat would warm up the foam, which would probably be a low conductor so the heat wouldn't easily dissipate.....oh dear, this is sounding terribly nerdy isn't it?

Anyway.... Balders had come with a whizz-bang, you beaut, upmarket camping mat - which turned out to be next to useless in providing comfort and reducing the cold. So the first thing we did upon surfacing in the morning (after the temp went down to 1 scummy degree of freezement) was have a good walk about to warm up, make coffee and then discuss possible solutions to the cold/discomfort issue. Balders had a little test lie down on one of our blow ups and promptly nodded off for an hour!

Upon her re-appearance from the tent, we ventured out to Castlemaine to seek out a delish cooked breakfast at The Dove Cafe, followed by air mattress shopping.

And then we got tattoos! Yay!

We arrived just after lunch on Anzac Day to find an almost deserted free camp site (yay!) and set up under a brilliant blue sky.  Being the responsible adults we are, we shunned getting on the beers until all the work was done, including driving off in search of firewood, because no camping experience is complete without fire.  It had been 3°C overnight the night before we arrived, but we weren’t there then so we didn’t care. It was supposed to be around 10°C for our first night, perfect for getting a fire on for warming up one's toes.

We spent the afternoon yapping, playing Championship Scrabble, drinking beers, eating yummy things and generally chilling out.  Some clouds rolled in later in the day and hung around keeping the heat in, so we knew we weren’t going to be freezing our bits off overnight. But the weather forecast for Friday and Saturday was cool, with scattered showers, so we’d come prepared with all the appropriate shelter and clothing items. Girl Guides Be Prepared Kit item No 8: bring all the shit you might need.

Friday dawned overcast and chilly so we sparked up the campfire and lounged around in our PJs for ages, drinking coffee, scoffing breakfast and making no decisions beyond that, because that’s allowed when camping.

We eventually got our shit together and headed into Castlemaine for a meander around the Botanical Gardens.  It’s obligingly compact and flat so the old knees had no reason to panic, and there were plenty of opportunities to stop for a photo op (aka ‘a rest’).  There’s loads of native and non-native trees, Lake Johanna (with ducks!), picnic facilities and toilets, a kiddies playground and a massive oak tree, allegedly planted in 1863 to commemorate some or other royal wedding.

We had a nice cruisy evening (with fire, of course) and then noticed that all the clouds had nicked off and it was getting decidedly cool. You know the temperature has dropped considerably when your red wine has taken on a heavy but distinctly chilled rose vibe.  By 10.30pm, the fire was only warming us in small bursts as the temperature continued to plummet, and we deemed it was time for bed.

At this point, Flash revealed her secret weapon: a portable tent heater!! No, I didn't know such things existed either but I can tell you that 10 minutes of that thing blasting inside the tent meant the danger of freezing off any extremities whilst getting out of clothes and into PJs/sleeping bag was eradicated!

Sleep, sorted!

Balders needed something new to amuse her 3 year old for a couple of hours so we met up for a late breakfast (read: coffee) before steeling ourselves for crowds of harried parents, screaming children and pram jams. As we approached the ticket desk, I noticed that we were the only people lining up. Was this a sign that the place was over-hyped and actually a bit shit?
 
Mr 3 had scarfed down a big juice with breakfast, so he was all sugared up and ready to roll, but a visit starts with a quick chat from one of the guides who walk visitors through how to position themselves for photographs with the paintings. Cool, huh?  Mr 3 of course spent this time rolling around on the floor babbling incoherently and rolling his eyes like he'd contracted rabies. I'd love to be able to show you lots of pictures of the young chap posing with every painting but sadly, that's just not possible. And no, it's not because there was 4 million other people there getting in the way and ruining every shot, because the place was almost empty!

No, it's because the little blighter just wouldn't stand or sit or lie or do anything for longer than a nano-second!!

We were really surprised to find that there was only about 20 other people in the place, and it's a pretty big space, so nobody was getting in anyone's way. It was the day before school holidays started, so I expected there to be at least a couple of hundred people getting a visit in before masses of squawking juveniles descended like a plague of hungry locusts blabbing on about Fortnight or Toy Story or whatever it is that small humans talk about, but no. The only hungry locust in the place was Mr 3, who after about 39 seconds of being in the gallery, had suddenly decided he was hungry and needed to snack RIGHT NOW.

Several small tantrums were threatening to gang up and become one big one, so after a while we wandered outside for a snack before returning to the gallery to finish viewing the areas we hadn't seen. The gallery's good like that: they obviously had everyone paying attention at the "Dealing With Small Children In Public Places 101" course because you can come and go once you've brought a ticket. Good for not getting sensory overload, which I suppose is always possible if you're only 3!

Definitely worth a visit if you can be jammy enough to score a day when hordes of the great unwashed don't turn up. It's nearly $30 for an adult, but littlies are free, so go on - treat yourself.  Bring a camera, a sense of humour and some patience. There's at least a hundred odd paintings, so allow a good hour if you're not chasing a 3 year old (but longer if you are!).

You'd think that only capital cities (I'm looking at you, Melbourne) would be steaming arse-nuggets of congestion in the dunny bowl of life, but nah....seems it happens in the country too. The Great Alpine Road is a two lane country road that starts at Wangaratta and heads over the alpine region of Victoria to Bairnsdale in East Gippsland. It's just over 300km long and naturally, we were on the bit that was chock full of punters (like us) returning to their suburban lairs after a weekend away.

Just as we were about to run out of swear words to describe traffic jams (and mindful of the fact that we were part of said jam), a big field of sunflowers came into view and whispered "Join us, join us". 

The sunflower field was a Pepo Farms initiative: they were aiming to create a community farm in the area to launch and fund young farmers (https://pepofarms.com.au). They're all about local foods and growers, and the sunflowers were available to purchase with the funds going towards the project. 

Our next stop was scheduled: Winton Wetlands in north east Victoria. This had been on my bucket list for a good while because I’m a sucker for dead trees in water and art in the landscape. Winton had dead trees by the plenty, but water was non-existent.

The place was so dry, there were masses of tumbleweed collected against trees and bushes. It looked cool but creepy - like a sinister straw-coloured fairy floss that had engulfed the landscape. 

Winton Swamp was flooded in 1971 to create Lake Mokoan but in 2010, the lake was decommissioned and drained after repeated drought years left it essentially unable to ‘pay its way’. Soon after, a new Committee of People Who Know About Such Things was charged with restoring the old dam site. So far, not much water but it's an ambitious project: Winton is the largest wetland restoration project in the southern hemisphere.  And we did go at the beginning of Autumn, so maybe it's not surprising it was dry, eh?

So that was that really. We had a drive around Winton, saw a few bits of art, loads of dead trees and some live 'roos and then we drove home.  

It being a nice warm day, we started the Diggings Walk in thongs, as a proper Aussie would. Naturally, we didn’t think about snakes, spiders or other harbingers of death, until it became evident that a large grassy hill leading down to the Walk proper was probably going to be our downfall (geddit?!?) if we attempted to negotiate a descent in flimsy footwear.

One Appropriate Footwear change later, we began the knee busting lurch down to the Wandiligong Diggings Reserve, only to find that the hill itself was a doddle and it was maniacs on bikes hurtling down said hill that posed the most danger. We made it to the first bridge to cross Morses Creek (without getting mangled by cycling hooligans) and meandered along the trail to the Chinese Swing Bridge. Built in 2003, the bridge honours the thousands of Chinese who lived and died in this area during the Victorian Goldrush in the 1850s and '60s.

The Diggings Walk crosses many bridges as it weaves its way over and around the creek, and along the way are dotted information signs, bird hides, disused mine shafts, and a Chinese Pavilion.

Sadly, the maze looked like it was just all too hard. I know nothing of its background or current situation, but when we arrived, there were about half a dozen other cars in the car park, indicating patrons but not a stampede of them (which is good).  The cafe doubles as Admissions and there seemed to be only one person trying to juggle incoming maze wanderers, hungry lunch-a-lots and those who just required caffeine, stat. We hadn't been waiting 5 minutes when the poor soul behind the counter declared that lunch was off the table (so to speak) and she'd only be doing drinks. At lunchtime. Glad we had our customary 15 muesli bars with us, then.

We exited the maze grounds and stopped at the nearly Alpine Recreation Park for a bit of lunch and guess what? Found another bridge!

As it happens, a few fires had started to spring up across the state in February and March, thanks to some really hot weather, tinder dry foilage and ever-helpful lightning strikes. The closest fires to our would-be camp were in the Baw Baw National Park and Bunyip State Forest – both a good bit west of Buchan so we weren’t really concerned about it, But like good prepared citizens, we kept our eyes on the fire situation and agreed that if things were looking hairy by Wednesday before the long weekend arrived, we’d pull the plug on Buchan and consider going somewhere less likely to toast us.

Flashie set about coming up with a Plan B. Preferably somewhere within a 3-4 hour drive, with interesting things to see and do but equally with campground surroundings nice enough that if we wanted to just hang out and chill, it would be a good place to do it. Oh, and a fire pit. Because contained fire is mesmerising and awesome for baked potatoes.​  

By Wednesday, lots of the smaller bushfires had joined up like they’d gate crashed a party they found on Facebook, and were hellbent on searing the eastern half the state, so Plan B was invoked. Thus it was that late Thursday afternoon after work, we hightailed it towards Bright in the north east of the state, well away from blazing Gippsland. 

Flashie had found a decent campground near the alpine township of Bright, and we arrived just after sunset. We unloaded the car and set about pitching a tent in the twilight and finished the job in the growing darkness.  Fortunately there was next to no wind, so we decided not to bother pegging the tent down at all points in the dark and opted instead for food and a beverage before a bit of chill out time. 

The following morning we finished setting up camp, inspected our surroundings and collected some supplies in town. We were about to settle in for an afternoon of cheeky beers and World Championship Scrabble when another camper approached our site to warn us about the brown snake that was happily sunning itself about 20 metres away from our tent. Any thoughts we had of bush weeing were quickly axed, given such action might be detrimental to our health should Brownie be inadvertently rained on!

Quite a few new arrivals to the campground turned up during the course of the day so we were glad we came early and had the pick of the place. Brownie must've decided it was a bit crowded because he moved on; I saw him on the path as I approached the river late in the afternoon, and figured he was either scarpering, gathering a posse for imminent Snake v Human war, or it wasn't Brownie at all but Brownie V2.0. In any event, I didn't see either of them again.

We spent Saturday afternoon mooching around Beechworth, checking out the local lake, park and cemetery, and avoiding spiders (bastard thing was lurking in a public toilet, which suddenly cured me of my need to go). We also managed to pick up some beers at Bridge Rd Brewery, but you're not surprised to hear that, are you?

Flashie decided to walk through this:

....with her eyes shut and me calling out directions, because we'd been sensible for ages and it was getting boring and surely it's not a camping trip until someone falls over and splits their head open on a large piece of granite, right? 

Fortunately, I'm ace at telling people where to go so Flash made it to the end without bloodshed.

We found the local cemetery including the Chinese section with its Burning Towers (for burning paper not bodies); the grave of Alexander Bell (no, not the phone bloke) and a bunch of graves of Catholic Mothers & Sisters, nicely laid out on a fenced lawn. Not out and about with the common folk, even in death, eh?

I like cemeteries; they're quite serene places. I can't be buried in one though.  I'm not dead yet.​

So, how did it get to this?

As a kid, I didn’t mind hot weather at all. Staying in jeans all day when it was 36°C  didn’t seem to bother me. Standing on hot pavement in bare feet? No worries. An afternoon in the beer garden in full sun? Sure!

When I worked in an office that doubled as a server room (that’s IT speak for you non nerds – it’s the room where all the computery stuff lives, so it needs to be cold), I usually wore thermal socks and boots with my suits. The suit jacket stayed on all day, even when I went outside. In fact, I’d go outside and sit on a concrete seat in the sun for 15 minutes at a time to warm up like the reptile I’d clearly become.

It could be 35°C at 6pm, and I’d spend 40 minutes walking home IN A BLACK SUIT and said thermal socks and boots. I'd barely break a sweat until I was a street away from home, and once I got there I'd get into shorts and a t-shirt for about ten minutes before having to don jeans and socks again. I suspect all those years in the server room might have broken my thermostat.

In the last 5 or so years, 25°C feels like it might as well be 42°C. My base temperature seems to be set to ‘simmer’ with occasional spikes into ‘flash fry’, but the advent of summer puts me firmly into ‘lava’ territory. Some days I feel like I could set new records on the Scoville scale. So, as inviting as the beach may be, I generally only go when it's cooler in the evening. You know...like 30°C.

Having spent Christmas in Casterton being parboiled, and New Year in Adelaide being barbequed, we were naturally pretty keen to get home to our little house that has no air conditioning, completely ineffective insulation and a black tiled roof, just in time for the burny bastard in the sky to fire up its heat beam on Melbourne.

Not content with cranking out some 35°C days, the killer sun has seen fit to have a stab at some mid-40°C sessions, and I've just tried not to die as a result. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Am I?

I managed to get myself down the Bellarine Peninsula for a quiet late afternoon/early evening contemplation of my navel, a few old bits of pier and the bliss that is 28°C with a sea breeze. I could quite happily have slept out here except for the mozzies, the boaties and fish guts, but the fat devil living in my stomach demanded cheese and no girl can argue with that!

Q. What do you want as a Christmas gift?

A.  Oh....I dunno.  How about financial security? No? What about a great career? Too hard? Oh! I know – a sense of purpose! Can’t do that either?  Perhaps a nap would be nice….
 
May you get lots of naps over the holiday period.

Sure it doesn't look THAT tall, but the sun was out and it was quite warm so you know...it seemed much taller than it actually was. But never fear - your faithful scribe didn't pass out mid-climb so now I'm here to tell the tale. Let's go back a bit, shall we?

Avid readers will remember when I escaped the People's Republic of Moreland for a day and went to Warburton to frolick amongst trees and rivers with wood nymphs and badgers* (can't remember it? Refresh your memory here: redwood-forest-warburton.html).  Well, during that journey, I noted a sign for Mount Donna Buang and although my first thought was "that's a bit unfortunate for Donna", my second was "I've never been there...and I should rectify that situation". So I did.

First stop: Rainforest Gallery.  (​Take note, dear reader, of the walkways - particularly the steps. Loads of them. It's a wonder my kneecaps didn't actually explode here.)

*badgers? Don't be ridiculous!

The Rainforest Gallery has an elevated walkway that ambles through the likes of mountain ash, myrtle beech trees and various ferns for about 400 metres. It's a pleasant little walk with plenty to see along the way and a couple of spots to rest. Did you know that the myrtle beech is native to Victoria and Tasmania, but isn’t related to the Myrtle family? Its genus name is Nothofagus cunninghamii : nothos = false and fagos = beech, so.....not really a beech. The clues were all there! 

I was totally alone here so it was a little uncomfortable, but not in an 'oh dear, I'm probably going to get mauled by ice-addled wombats' kind of way. More in a 'no-one will hear me scream if I fall off this bloody walkway' kind of way. Yes, of course it had safety rails but they're not always helpful if you insist on climbing or stretching way further than you should, are they?!? (not that I would do such a thing, officer). Anyway...it was a good place to start the day, and I imagine it would be a great refuge on a scorching summer's day. Unless it was on fire of course.

Next stop: Mount Donna Buang

I know next to nothing about Mount Donna Buang. When I was a kid I assumed it was just some far-off suburb that was partial to being cold because whenever I heard people talking about 'going to the snow', it always came out like "We're going to Donabwang". I had no idea where it was; I'd never even seen snow and didn't especially equate it to alpine regions. Donabwang might as well have been on the moon, and snow might have regularly appeared in Chadstone for all I knew. (And it was only about 15 years ago that I discovered that Chadstone is an actual suburb, not just a shopping centre. Clearly, I went to the school for the gifted.)

My parents reckon they took me to the Lake Mountain snowfield once on a bus tour when I was a kid, but I have no recollection of the outing. Apparently there's photographic evidence of me with snow, surrounded by trees, so it must be true, eh?  

I did eventually have a crack at Nordic skiing at Lake Mountain as a young adult, before I discovered snow is cold and painful when you fall on it. I wasn't very good at skiing and even worse at stopping. Herringboning up slightly inclined hills, snowploughing down gently sloping hills and completely buggering up kick turns all featured ferocious leg cramps and the odd face plant, and I soon realised the 'fall down' method of stopping was effective, but hardly elegant. I was better suited to knocking back a wine or three at the local pub.

Having given up on my dreams of becoming World Nordic Ski Champion after 5 lessons, 1 blizzard and a very large wombat, and believing Donabwang was still a snowy suburb, ​I'd never had any interest in going there.  And yet, here I was with all my new found knowledge that it's actually a mountain and it's not snowy all the time!! 

I managed to climb the 21 metre high lookout tower, which gave me a good view of trees, the sky and the car park, then had a wander down to the toboggan fields, which at this time of the year were just fields. I stopped in a spooky wood to scoff a sambo and put pumpkin seeds on some low tree branches, hoping the rosellas that were squawking their heads off would come down for a photo opportunity. The blighters didn't oblige me so I finished my lunch, packed up my camera gear and left. Just as I reached the end of the wood, the buggers were all over the lower branches munching away. I'm sure they were laughing at me.

I finished out the day at Maroondah Reservoir Park, because it was on the way home and it was another place I'd never been to before. I had a very strange feeling of deja vu when I turned into the car park. There were things I recognised, but I had no idea why. Perhaps bits of my research into the place were creating vivid pictures in my head just to confuse me.

The park was fairly quiet so late in the day with only a handful of dog walkers, a couple of joggers (what is wrong with these people?!!?) and a park ranger roaming around.  I spent some time wandering along the historic Rose Stairway, through various parts of the gardens, along Watts River and up to the top of the dam wall where I was treated to a lovely sunset. When I returned to the car park I had that same deja vu feeling again. There was something about the light and the view that I was currently looking at that evoked such a strong feeling that I'd been here before and yet....I had no recollection (and certainly no photos) to support the feeling. Am I just really good at research!?!?

A few days later as I was researching another location, I got whacked over the head by Mnemosyne, and it turns out I had been here before, but only as a pit stop on the return leg of a previous jaunt to Marysville. So there you go....a little tease of memory at the far reaches of my brain turned into an actual memory once I stopped thinking about it. 

Yesterday I completely forgot a PIN for one of my cards. Maybe I'm experiencing the beginning of ​Alzheimer's. My mum used to say she had it, but she just forgot she had it and then she was cured!

I decided one day that I would like to find some old ruins to photograph and where better to look for such things but the very nifty Google Earth which pointed me in the direction of Central Victoria because that's where lots of old things are.

And so it was that I found myself at the Mount Greenock Geological Scenic Reserve (which is not particularly scenic) eating a sandwich and contemplating whether or not I should walk up said mount. I was fully intending to until a close inspection through my camera's viewfinder made me decide it was a bad idea because the hill was crawling with bulls. After a few seconds of picturing my demise and ensuing death certificate noting 'death by being chased, gored and stomped on by bulls', I decided I'd just go find these ruins instead.

So, one set of ruins done - might as well head into Talbot. I had no real idea what to expect here. I thought I might be in and out in 15 minutes. I was delighted to find it almost empty of cars and people but with a bunch of great looking buildings, many of which have been turned into residences. I did have a chat with a couple of locals (I know right - me, being social - who knew?!?) including a lady who had bought one of the old commercial businesses many years ago when it was in an unlivable state and turned it into a fantastic property that set the benchmark for other renos.

A quick look at the railway station (just because I love long lines that go to nothing) before a pit stop at  another unidentified ruin on the way out of Talbot...

...and then on to the original destination of the ruins of the old Greenoch Park Hotel in Red Lion.  This is just dying for someone to come along and turn it into a beautiful old country pub. 

And then, just because you've made it all the way to the end of this post (and I wasn't in a hurry to go home), you can have this picture of the Pioneer Memorial Tower at Bristol Hill. The tower was built during the Great Depression and looks out over the town of Maryborough. And yes, I did walk up it. I'm getting better with stairs now.

You're welcome.

​Metcalfe is a tiny township of about 300 people on the Coliban River in central Victoria. It’s been around since the gold rush days but now its main commercial activity is grazing. The Cascades is a part of the river that is partially blocked by boulders of every size, creating cascading falls of water, rock pools, streams and reed swamps.

I scrambled around the rocks like a demented Teletubbie for an hour, then headed towards some picnic tables to partake of my lunch. I hadn’t heard or seen anything except mozzies and butterflies so I was day dreaming about apocalyptic nonsense where I was the sole survivor on the planet. I was asking myself the hard questions like how could I make the water safe to drink, how soon before I was no longer vegetarian, and how do you grow coffee beans, when I heard a sound to my right.
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I swear I only jumped a little bit and the little shrieking noise might have been my boots protesting at me landing on the ground again post jump, but I was quite delighted to find this little chap searching out some tucker. 

After watching him for a while and scoffing my sandwich, I decided to have another crack at Turpins Falls in Metcalfe East. The last time I went there, the path was impassable due to landslip.  This time I was able to get to the viewing platform without any problems. No time to go on a further scramble though, as the light was starting to fade, so I hightailed it up the hill and headed home.