Healesville

We had planned to meet up with cousin Geoff, Janelle and a Beth, a friend of theirs, staying at another cousin’s home in Bright. However Bill and Hilde decided to take a trip to the UK - how inconsiderate of them!!!  So we had a change of plan, and Geoff and Janelle booked a cottage in Healesville where we arranged to meet up with them.  Healesville isn’t far from Melbourne so it fitted in well with our planned route.  Unfortunately most of the pictures were taken on my ipod and I’m afraid I can’t download them (modern technology and all that!) so pics are few and far between for this blog.    

The caravan site at Healesville

We booked onto a site for 5 nights leading up to the Easter weekend - most site’s are fully booked for Easter as school holidays are so popular and everyone seems to go camping or caravanning and you need to book well in advance (like 12 months sometimes!!).  The Ozzies certainly Work to Live (rather than Live to Work) and enjoy their holidays and free time so much.  Another lesson we’ve learned which we hope to put into practice when we return home.   We couldn’t have booked a better site - it was literally just around the corner from Geoff and Janelle’s little cottage.  We met up the first night at the local RSL Club and had a meal and caught up with all the news.  

Ruth helping Geoff prepare dinner

 On the Sunday evening Geoff (my Geoff) arranged to cook dinner at their cottage. We bought what looked like a lovely Sirloin joint, did the veg and put it all in the oven.  Turns out that it was Australian Corned Beef ….soaked in Brine…(not like our tinned corned beef back home) but anyway - you’re not supposed to roast it.  Laughs all round again.  But it was ok and we had a good night!

On the Tuesday all went out to local towns and villages, generally having a good mooch around and yes, meeting up for lunch.    

I had a day trip with them which started off as a bit of a disaster - everywhere we’d planned to go was closed - we just laughed and laughed … so we had to find a café for scones and hot chocolate!   We went on to a winery and were given a fantastic and very informative tour - the grand finale being - yes you’ve guessed it - wine tasting.  And of course, we had to find another café for a light lunch.  Geoff and I were treated to a fantastic meal that evening at the local hotel - thanks Geoff, Janelle and Beth!

Janelle

We had a lovely few days with them - as you can tell - mostly centred around food!  Ahhhh well - diet starts again tomorrow!!

We went back to Helen’s place just outside Melbourne as we couldn’t get booked onto any other camp site.  It worked out really well as Geoff was able to do a few extra jobs around the farm for her and we were able to go to the Easter services at the local Baptist Church - which were really good.  

 We left Helen’s on the Tuesday morning heading to the Great Ocean Road. Our little adventure to get there included a trip from   Sorrento over to Queenscliff on the ferry - interesting taking the caravan on a boat - but a lovely trip and so to start our journey along the Great Ocean Road.  But that’s another story!

Our house on the ferry!