Day 3 8/4/07 - Australia
Longford -> Tarra Bulga National Park -> Mirboo North ->Trafalgar -> Yarragon -> Trafalgar -> Warragul -> South Yarra -> Melbourne City
Highlight
- Having breakfast on the balcony while watching the sky change colour.
- watching birds and cows in the mist.
- Miners Lookout to observe the powerplant that generates over 90% of VIC's energy. The lookout was sponsored by the powerplant so it was immaculately update with beautiful decorations. You can see the coal mine and powerplant on one side and green farmland on the other.
- Tarra Bulga National Park, part of the Grand Ridge Road nature drive, was quite hard to reach. It involved driving through narrow, winding roads, sometimes unsealed. The park itself contained rainforests, a change from the temperate forests and wetlands we've been seeing. The air was cool, the floor covered with ferns.
- The highlight of the park was the Corrigan Suspension Bridge, part of the Wills Tracks. It wasn't as fun as the Bridge in Victoria Canada though.
- This was where our bunch of bad luck started. We decided to check out Blackwarry Tower, only to find out when we were nearly there that the road was for 4 wheel drive only. so we had to drive all the way back.
- Our next stop was the Tarra Valley Rainforest Walk. This was a pleasant walk through a rainforest gully and across trickling mountain streams. The highlight was supposed to be Cyathea Falls, but, because we were in teh middle of a drought, there was no water.
- The park was starting to fill with tourist at around this time (10:30), but when we tried to get out, we found our exit blocked by a fallen tree. No way to move forward, we had to take a detour (and because Slokky is crap we took a longer than necessary detour) on very narrow uncomfortable roads, adding an hour to our trip.
- Needless to say, after that drive, I wasn't interested in the dense forest and farmland scenery of Grand Ridge Road anymore.
- I was very glad when we reach Mirboo North, the home of the Grand Ridge Brewery. I really wanted one of their award-winning beer, but because we were delayed an hour and lunch was beckoning, I made do with a six-pack of takeaway beer ($25) instead.
- Had lunch at the Erinae Lavender garden's beautiful garden.
- Drove to Sunny Creek Organic Berries, only to find out that they weren't opened, even though people had called earlier and they had said they were opened. To compensate, we sample some of the apples and kiwi hanging from their trees instead.
- Yarragon Village is more one of the villages you expect on the tourist route. Filled with antique shops, and old fashioned lolly shop, lots of clothing and trinket store, not to mention enough cafes so you can have coffee at a different place each day for a week. Finally I picked up some fresh and rustic bread at the Yarragon Country Style bakery Bakery.
- Finally, at Yarragon's visitor centre, which also doubled as a gourmet food place, we were able to pick up a Gateway to Gippsland, Food & Wine Network brochure, which led us to Marshall Green Deer & Venison Farm
- The place was certainly hard to find, as someone had stolen their sign, so they had to put a red ribbon up. Once we were there, we were given a personal tour. First we were given some mitzu apples straight off the tree. While we were munching, we sharing the apples with the deers. Deers are quite shy animals, only 2 or 3 animals would eat out of your hand. We were told about the current mating season, as well as what the effects of the drought had been to farming.
- About 45 minutes later, we finally left, armed with some venison steaks (only $28/kg!), a quince jelly ($2), a handmade wool beanie ($6!), and a bag full of apples and quinces! She gave us recipe sheets, told us about her market sales and her other customers and her arts and crafts. We felt like we know just about everything! This has been another of those highlights that makes a trip so special.
- Well, after that, it was a bit too late to keep exploring. We stopped off at Warragul, but all the shops were closed, and the town itself wasn't that interesting, so we joined the traffic crawl back to Melbourne.
- Dinner at France Soir, classic French in style, but somehow so Melbourne.
- Relaxing in the roof top spa and plunging into the freezing cold swimming pool, just to say that we used the facilities at Rialto Hotel on Collins.
- Forcing down some complimentary choc-dipped strawberries as we were really full from dinner.
- Plucking out all of Slokky's chin hair (152!) because he forgot his shaver.
Food
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