Mozzeenet

Had a lovely day yesterday on a day trip to the Yarra Valley which is North-east of Melbourne. It’s winery country so we had a lot of fun vineyard-hopping doing wine tastings. We went to about 5 wineries all with different outlooks and atmosphere. Some were large commercial ones like De Bortoli and others small.

Acacia Ridge is an example of a small winery at the end of a dirt road with a cute little wooden cottage and a log fire. We were offered a platter of cheese and antipasto along with our tastings by the lady there - we were the only ones there although another group left just as we arrived and we ended up seeing them at the other wineries too! When we arrived we were greeted by two large and very friendly labradors who offered us gifts of logs of wood. I was a little scared at first and made Andrew get out of the car before me. They didn’t jump up though so I ventured out.

At de Bortoli, they do cheese tastings for a $2 donation each of a range of ‘out of this world’ cheese mainly from Europe including washed rind, sheep’s milk and goat, blues, cheddar and parmesan. I loved them all and we decided to buy a small slice of a delicious French smelly cheese and a hard goat’s cheese. We were high on cheese all day because they were in the back of the car and the smell wafted through. Anyone else would have probably run a mile if they attempted to get into the car.

We bought a couple of bottles and after we were done at the wineries, we headed to Healesville, a town nearby for lunch at a cafe. I was already pretty full of cheese so just had a small lunch while Andrew enjoyed a huge breakfast (even though it was 3pm). We were lucky because even though it was chilly, it was sunny (today was raining so wouldn’t have been as good). It’s lovely countryside all around.

At the end of the day, we drove up winding roads through lush rainforest amongst tall, straight trees to a place called Marysville which is a delightful town in the mountains. There were trees with fiery foliage lining the streets, fallen leaves everywhere and we drove up to see Steavenson’s Falls. It was brisk near the falls but lovely and peaceful and the sun was going down. The pink in the sky was lovely against the hills and foliage.

We also found a place in Marysville which we’re planning to go back and stay at. It’s a lodge with a great outlook onto green gardens and woodland. The price for the night includes 4 course dinner and breakfast as well. There are ski hire places all over the town because it snows up there at Lake Mountain. We might just do some walking though then go back to the lodge and enjoy the dinner and the log fires.

Check out Andrew’s photos and the rest of my photos on Flickr…

Is that another month gone? Yes. This will have to be a catch-up then on the happenings of the last month.

There was the Easter break which was a bit of a nightmare for me because I had an essay due the following Thursday. It made for a stressful few days because the essay was in the back of my mind the whole time. We did have a delicious Easter lunch and chocolate feast at Andrew’s mum’s place though on the Sunday and a big market shopping trip with Andrew’s sister on the Saturday in preparation. The highlight was a spectacular cake which Andrew’s Mum ordered from Brunetti. It was a chocolate cake with huge swirls of pure chocolate arranged on top like a flower arrangement. Decadent.

The weekend after I handed in that dog of an essay, we went to Sydney and caught up with lots of people. That was great fun. We mainly hung around the inner west area with dinner on Saturday night then lunch on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny weekend which was glorious after chilly Melbourne and it was good to be back in a familiar city again.

After that I realized that it will take a while to settle in properly down here. I really enjoy Melbourne, my work and everything on offer but it’s going to be a long process to build up friendships and really feel at home I think.

Had a three day workshop at uni the week before last which was excellent – met a lot of people including a Cambodian/Australian guy who will head over to Cambodia to teach next year. It was on International Project Planning and Design with lots of group work including practical exercises. It is always interesting hearing about other people’s experiences working overseas and in Australia. Both of the facilitators have worked all over the place including Vietnam and Africa.

Received some good news last week at work – it has been confirmed that my contract will be renewed for 6 months until December 1. This takes pressure off me to look for new jobs at the present time. I’m very happy about it because I like the team and the work.

Last Saturday afternoon I headed down for a session at the St Kilda Writers Festival which was interesting. Writers who have been sponsored by Asialink performed readings of their work. Asialink provides residencies for Australian artists in countries throughout Asia to pursue their work including visual arts, performing arts, arts management and literature. It was inspiring to hear a wide range of different writers read creative and interesting pieces they had written while living in Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Japan and Korea. I would like to do something like that at some stage.

Andrew moved house last weekend which was an upheaval as always and tiring for him. He and his flatmate worked hard last weekend, hiring a truck and moving everything. I helped a bit with packing up and unpacking. They are getting settled now into the new place and it’s looking great. Luckily it was just up the road so they didn’t have to go far.