A couple of weeks ago, I found myself on a plane, a bit of a shock after so long away from travel, heading up for a few days with family in Airlie Beach, in the Whitsundays.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself on a plane, a bit of a shock after so long away from travel, heading up for a few days with family in Airlie Beach, in the Whitsundays.
A few weeks ago, I escaped the house and headed out into the Yarra Valley. Warburton is a village sitting in a nook surrounded by dark mountains with the Yarra River gushing through. For some reason I’d never been there. What a delightful surprise.
Just 12 kilometres outside of Echuca (Echuca post here), is the town of Rochester, and I was delighted to discover two of the painted wheat silos that are part Victoria’s Silo Art Trail.
Continuing my exploration of Victoria’s country towns, I headed up to the twin towns of Echuca and Moama, nestled on either side of the Murray River, the river creating the border between Victoria and New South Wales.
With Christmas over, not to mention 2020, it was time to start exploring again. I headed north of Melbourne to the old gold-mining town of Castlemaine.
Continue reading “Old Gold-mining Town of Castlemaine”With Melbourne’s lockdown droning on and Melburnians still too dangerous to be let out, I decided some form of creativity was needed before my brain gave up the ghost completely.
Continue reading “Is This the Road to Stratford?”Seeing I’m a Melburnian and too dangerous to be let out, I thought I’d go through my old photos to see what was there, and came up with some very nice memories.
After the long drive from Melbourne and the checking out of the wheat silos, I decided to leave the exploration of Benalla to the morning. I came out of my motel on the edge of town early to discover an almost solid wall of fog. Still, intrepid traveller that I am, I headed in and I’m glad I did. I don’t know why I’ve never been here before but I have to say, it’s a lovely town, built around Lake Benalla.
I’ve been seeing photos of artwork on wheat silos for ages and decided it was time I saw the real thing, and so I headed for Benalla in Victoria’s north-east, and to the three little towns of Goorambat, Devenish and St. James.
There are advantages I discovered, as a writer, to having a new virus flitting around, one being that, what with not being allowed to visit my father in his care home, no movies, no shows or Melbourne’s Comedy Festival, I had more time for projects I’ve been putting off for far too long.
One of these was a re-editing of my book, Hangi, Haka and Hobbits, relating my experiences while road-tripping around both islands of New Zealand. Now 10,000 words less (can you believe it?) it’s trim, taut and well, hopefully terrific.
Continue reading “Hangi, Haka and Hobbits: Notes from New Zealand”