Forgive me dear reader for I have sinned. It’s been over a month since my last confession. I’ve been a bit busy this past month and after fulfilling the time quotas I have for being annoying to my better half, taking naps, inhaling popcorn and generally being lazy, there’s often no time for writing.
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But here I am, back to tell you about the time I went to Metcalfe and discovered The Cascades. I say “discovered”, but I don’t mean in the sense that a great explorer might have discovered an uninhabited island. Oh no....it was very clear someone had been here before me.  Picnic tables!

Right, well it's officially Winter. Ugh, I can feel my insides getting colder already.

​Garden wandering again....this time in Mount Macedon. You'd think by the number of posts on this blog that contain trees, leaves, flowers and other bits of organic-based tat, that I actually enjoy gardening. I don't particularly, and I know stuff-all about it, but I hated the back dirt we used to have so I thought I'd have a crack at growing stuff. I do like the fruits of my labours when I can walk out the back and pick some basil and capsicum, et viola! I'm halfway to dinner! This guy was so perfectly formed, it was almost a crime to eat him so I photographed him for prosperity. Or to show off. 

What's next I hear you ask? Well....it's Victoria Fossil Cave at Naracoorte in SA! Yaaaayyyy!!!  [And the crowd are going wild!] Yes, it appears that many moons ago, in the time before The Internet, people actually socialised with each other, and went outdoors and explored stuff. And some guys explored so much that they eventually found a cave with loads of fossils in it, and they got all excited and shouted “Victoria!” instead of “Eureka!” and that’s how the Victoria Fossil Cave was named.  Possibly.

The other week I took myself out of the People’s Republic of Moreland and ventured to The Coast. Being the pale skinned, sun allergic tragic that I am, this isn’t something that happens often. Or at all. But I was bored of watching hipsters drink coffee and eat watermelon, and some members of my family had stupidly put themselves within driving distance, so I set off to annoy them for a couple of days.
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Kennett River is about two and a half hours drive from my place. Unless someone decides they want to pull up a sizeable chunk of the Great Ocean Road in the guise of ‘roadworks’, in which case it takes about a week. Fortunately, I had brought pumpkin seeds and crisps, so I wouldn’t starve. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who likes crisps.

Well, that's not strictly true: 

• I drove almost 500km to get to Goulburn Weir and back (don't ask...it's a skill);
• Bestie's little bloke turned 2 (mmm...cake);
• We had an ant plague;
• I submitted photos to the International Color Awards (it's American based, hence the spelling; I know how to spell colour properly. See, I just did it then); 
• Bestie's little bloke broke his leg good and proper;
• New Steven Wilson album turned up (post office redeemed themselves by NOT hanging on to it for 2 weeks like they did with my last parcel that I had to make 5 visits to find...but I'm not bitter)

Did you know Halls Gap has a zoo? Well it does, and it's definitely worth a visit. Go now. Well, at least go when it's open. And you have a spare couple of hours. It's got about 150 different species and lots of them are free range (not the ones that will kill you..obviously) and you can hand feed some of them.

​Went to the zoo to check out the new Lemur Island where King Julien and his minion lemurs are free range but oh so aloof! Lots of them were hanging around looking like they’re doing yoga or directing traffic or just plotting the demise of the entire human race.

People often given their pets odd names. If I had a cat, I'd call it Ferris Mewler. Does that make me odd?

These are Bestie's fur kids. Check out their names and judge for yourself.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

After spending a couple of hours by the pool drinking cocktails, Flashie and I had an idea that we might hire a driver again the next day and nick off to the Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary. Because who doesn't love a Sanctuary in the middle of big cat country? Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but the Sanctuary is apparently a jungle resort set among rollings hills, and the area is supposedly frequented by panthers, leopards and swamp lynx so hopefully we wouldn't get ambushed by a trilogy of felines with a hankering for human kibble.

We filled up with a decent breakfast and headed out towards Ponda and into the mountains to have a walk around the Bondla Zoo Circuit. It’s not a big place; you can get around it in an hour easily enough but calling it a sanctuary is a fair stretch.

I have to confess, I totally love the ramshackle corrugated tin number. A for effort, surely?

Rabbit (in the shade), fairy wren (in the scrub), echidna (in the bush), duck (in the pond).

​This poor turtle was trying to cross the road towards a swamp on a 35+ day and it was being dive bombed by a magpie with a bad attitude. I considered his options for as long as it took to take his picture: magpie’s lunch, squashed by a bus full of tourists (there was one coming) or human intervention?

B​efore uni started again and before my French buddy Eva left to go travelling her way back to Europe and beyond, we went to the Dandenong Ranges for the day. With the same intention as our trip to the 12 Apostles last November, we just rambled and photographed whatever we wanted to, just for the hell of it.

​And we fed cockies!