Return to Oz

We have returned to Oz until the 9th of May when we will return home (CA for those who want to know WHICH home). Our resort is in the bushland (forest) and they are individual cottages. Not too bad – this is my way of “camping” if I don’t have the motorhome.

We arrived very late on Friday into Melbourne and had an hour drive to the resort. Then we had to find our cottage in the dark. Wasn’t too bad except that when we arrived the reception had closed almost 3 hours before. Our paperwork was locked in an outdoors safe and we were to call the after-hours number to get the code to open the safe. No problem except that we had no phones!! So off I trek through the dark and the trees and would hopefully find a cottage that was occupied by someone that had a local phone. Luckily the cottage next to the reception was occupied and I could use their phone to call. We finally got settled about 9:30pm.

The next day we took a drive around the area and went into town to walk around. The area we are staying in is among the wine country and the goldfields. So you can go wine tasting and gold digging at the same time! What a deal.

On Sunday we took a drive to Castlemaine which is about 30 minutes north of us to a local farmer’s market and then took a steam train ride up to another gold rush town, Maldon. A lot of the buildings are the original and are still being used. We had a great lunch in a local pub and had a wonderful time with the bartender. We also had lunch with a couple we met on the train who were “caravanning” (motorhomeing) around the south. They were from a town north of Sydney and had a daughter living in Houston. They were a wonderful couple to share our lunch table with.

When we were out driving we came across this sight on the side of the

road. We asked a local farmer at the market what it meant to see foxes hung on the fence and his response was that it was a warning – lambing season was in full swing and foxes are the natural enemy of lambs. In other words – don’t mess with a sheep farmer!!! We also saw a dead kangaroo on the side of the road and asked him if that is normal. His partner said that for every 1 you see dead there are 10,000 that are still around. So we concluded that their kangaroos are like our deer. You know they are there, but you only see them dead on the road or are close to being hit at dusk and dawn. Except I think the roos would be a bigger mess to a car than the deer. Maybe one day we will see a roo because we are staying in an area that warns of roos on the road. Just as I finished writing this I looked out the kitchen window and this is what I saw -

Later I will post some of the road signs we have encountered along our travels in Melbourne area.