With just a day at home after the quick trip to Adelaide, Roo hit the road again, doing 550km trek down the Calder Highway again back to Melbourne. This time it was for a special event to celebrate the 90th Birthday of Roo's father! A special congratulations to you Dad, I know you do not get to see these posts much at all, but wanted to wish him an extra special birthday as he enters into a new decade that many never have the chance to. Despite your challenges you have provide time and time again your strength and courage for which I admire. Congratulations on this AMAZING milestone! Here's hoping that you have many more positive days ahead! |
0 Comments
Mr Roo and I took a quick trip to Adelaide to join Jess who was already in Adelaide spending time with her special friend Bo who had recently moved to Adelaide to attend University.
Mr Roo and I had a fun couple of days shopping at Harbour Town Outlet Shopping Centre, as well as a walk around and along the pier at one of our favourite beachside Adelaide locations, Glenelg. Jess and Bo did their own thing including visiting the Adelaide Zoo Other activities included checking out Bo's new digs at the Residences he is now living in. We also attended by chance a Vintage Car Rally we happened to pass which was really interesting and had dinner at Hog's Breath Glenelg. A great fun weekend! Whilst we were en route to Tarra Bulga National Park a couple of days ago, we received the devastating news that we had a power failure back at home to our shed only. As most of you know our daughter has a keen interest in taxidermy and had, over the past 5 years been collecting various animals to store in freezers which were located in the shed. Unfortunately it meant that Jess has lost pretty much her entire collection so we had decided to head on home early to assess the damage.
So we had a big day ahead of us today and packed up and farewelled the pretty town of Foster and firstly headed for Melbourne via Kilsyth to call in once again to Hunted Antiques and Collectables. Jess was keen to pick up a couple of items which she was pleased to find was still there. We then drove into the suburbs and stopped to say a quick hello to Roo's father who was pleased to see us once again as well as calling in to say a quick helloi to some 'internet friends' as we had parked out caravan out the front of their home. We then called in at Kynteon to visit Roo's cousin and partner. Headed for home.
We arrived at Port Welshpool and found the tide right out and checked out the local pier and fishing boats. We then took a drive to the very sleepy and quiet fishing town of Port Franklin. On the road into Port Franklin we came across a huge herd of dairy cows casually making their way, seemingly on their own to the dairy which was on the other side of the road that we were travelling on. We thought we would be held up for some time and did not mind that prospect in the least, but we found interestingly, that find their route would not be crossing the road but was actually diverted down under the road through a tunnel and up the other side. So Roo jumped out to take a photo from on top of the road which stopped the moving herd in their tracks as they all stopped and stared! Quite a funny sight! Eventually, they lost interest in Roo and re focused on their journey to the dairy!
We then headed back to Foster which is a unique and pretty small town in the heart of what is known as Prom Country. Wilsons Promontory is a 50 000 hectare coastal wilderness area, known as The Prom. It is a National Park and known for its rugged mountains and numerous walking trails though natural bushland teeming with all manner of Australian wildlife including kangaroos and wombats Whilst Foster is a great base for exploring The Prom, the town itself is very pretty serviced by not many, but some great little shops and has a gold mining history dating back to the 1870's. But the main reason for us stopping over at Foster was to catch up with some of our friends whom Roo had grown up with from childhood days. So we capped off an amazing day with an outdoor BBQ around the campfire for dinner, catching up and reminiscing over old times. Such a great night!
Other birds we saw were the yellow tailed black cockatoo, the kookaburra and the crimson rosella.
We then took a drive to the Cyathea Falls where we enjoyed short walk through the beautiful shaded and damp rainforest to the falls despite them just being a trickle, given the recent dry conditions at the end of summer. The rainforest environment is such a reflective place of nature, serenity, wonder and beauty. It is hard not to be moved by it. It is such a refreshing contrast to the dry arid habitat of our home town of Mildura, and surrounds, which has it's own beauty. Upon return to Traralgon, we took a visit check out the Loy Yang Power Station which is about 12km from Traralgon. Loy Yang Power Station is owned by AGL and currently supplies around 30% of Victoria's power requirements. Loy Yang uses brown coal which is supplied exclusively by the adjacent open cut mine and this can be viewed from the Miner's Lookout which is off the Hyland Highway between Traralgon and Loy Yang.
We spent time exploring the small village which, in the late 1800's was one of the most vibrant gold mining districts in the world. Whilst fire had destroyed some of the original buildings, there are still a number of historical buildings remaining. We climbed up to the Historic Walhalla Cemetery, where it is often said that "the cemetery is so steep that they are buried standing up". It certainly is steep with many 'levels' of grave rows. It is one of Victoria's most significant and unusual cemeteries. Many of the tombstones reflected the tragedy and harshness of life in the gold mines in this remote community. Certainly a reflective place.
We also took a walk up to the Tramline Walk Lookout that has a terrific view down over the town itself. Our next activity took us on the Walhalla Goldfields Railway which was a fun and scenic steam train journey that followed the Stringers Creek Gorge and crosses several large trestle bridges, over the creek and also across the Thomson River. The great bonus for us was that it is out of peak season and no crowds which made the whole experience all the more enjoyable. Our next adventure was to continue on to Mount Baw Baw which is the closest downhill ski resort to Melbourne. Again, we just about had the entire place to ourselves apart from a few who appeared to be folk preparing for the next snow season which starts sometime around the second week in June. Of course there was no snow but still a grand and spectacular place to see. The air was heavy with the scent of damp eucalyptus but so refreshing. We really do have some amazing and spectacular places here in Australia!
'Imagine' was the name of the exhibition which included, in my view, something for everyone amongst the 134 works on display. My favourites were the work of Annemieke Mein a Dutch born Australian textile artist who apparently lives locally and who specialises in depicting Australian wildlife. Her exhibits were very captivating!
After farewelling the guys, we continued along the Princes Highway to check out the town of Bairnsdale a further 68km east of Sale. We were surprised that it was smaller than Traralgon as it is mentioned far more often on the news as a central regional town of the Gippsland region, than Traralgon or Sale and had just assumed it to be bigger. We then continued a little further (16km) south to the seaside town of Paynesville which was a quaint little village that included an operating car / passenger ferry to get across to the adjacent island, Raymond Island which is a haven for Koalas. Whilst we were in Paynesville we were lucky enough to spot the iconic Lady Nelson replica sail into the marina. Whilst she did not have all her sails up it was a pretty impressive sight to see! We headed back into Traralgon and had time to call into the local Antique Bottle and Collector's Store which was packed with all kinds of bottles from different eras. We were most surprised to discover that the "Bottle Man" was very close to our next door neighbour who has recently passed away and had the shared interest of bottle collecting! What a small world!
who once lived and farmed in these very hills all those years ago. We found the grave with ease, and found an unexpected plaque that I did not know existed on inside the entry, all in honour of my relatives!
We then travelled on to Warragul to the Warragul Cemetery for a similar reason, but on Mr Roo's side but unfortunately had no success in tracing the relative that he thought may be found in this cemetery. So we continued on to Moe and decided to continue on to Traralgon which appeared to be a better base location wise for us to do the things we were hoping to do in the next few days. We found a great park, Traralgon Park Lane Big 4 Holiday Park and quickly set up and took a drive into town before tea and was surprised at how big and well serviced the town actually was! We got an early night for the promise of a busy day tomorrow!
made in taxidermy workshops though mostly from online in taxidermy forums.
One thing that really impresses me with the Australian Taxidermy Championships, which I wrote of in the 2017 Championships tab (link can be found above) is that it is not a show solely focused on competition against your fellow . Whist there were awards and recognition given to the best over all in the various categories most of the categories were multi ribbon divisions, that is, all mounts scoring 90 to 100 receive a blue ribbon, those scoring between 80 and 89 a red ribbon and those between 70 and 79 a yellow ribbon. I thought that was excellent and recognition for where your skill level is at, rather than competing to try to beat the next exhibitor. For more information check out the Australian Association of Wildlife Artists Inc. website Competition page. We also had a chance to meet up with a Taxidermist from Cairns and more about that in the next stage of our Australian trip - stay tuned! Whilst Jess was attending the Championships, Mr Roo, Ryan and I took a chance to check out some local sites which included the Ringwood Clock Tower and also Eastland Shopping Centre. Those of you who have followed my blog previously may recall that the clock itself of the Ringwood Clock Tower was made by my Grandfather who was a clockmaker in his day and was also a returned soldier from WW1. The story as I understand it was that my Grandfather did not quite have the clock operating in time for the official opening so he climbed up inside the tower to manually move the clock hands during the ceremony without the crowd realising! Prior to the dropping Jess at the Show on the second day, we took the chance to check out the Anique Store Hunted Antiques in Kylsyth that Jess was keen to see as it was mentioned at the Taxidermy Show and was located near Lilydale. It was no surprise that Jess did not leave empty handed - with a racoon pelt! Jess thoroughly enjoyed the show and meeting up with those who share her interest and inspiring her to consider putting in an entry for the 2019 Show!
|
Archives
July 2023
About UsIn June /July and August of 2013 Roo and family embarked on a travel experience of a lifetime in the Australian Outback and initially created this website for those family and friends to follow us on our Journey. |