Melbourne and Home

 Time to say goodbye to Kerrie and Bendigo and head to Melbourne. Called in to Melton and caught up with my brother Gary at his warehouse . Gary gets excess stock and returns from various places including excess stock from Canberra Costco, so I brought some items to bring back to Canberra!

Headed to Boronia, where Amy and I were staying with friends- Louise and Ron Vinck, they spoil us!

Over the next 5 days we caught up with my brothers Kim and Michael and families which was nice. 

Louise and I enjoyed a lovely walk in the Dandenongs, one of my favourite places. Rainforest is good for the soul.

We finished our 5km walk with lunch at the Kallista Tea Rooms

Another day Amy and I popped up to Olinda and Sassafras in the Dandenongs, had a look around Juet, a lovely sculpture shop- would love a bridge like this for my dry river bed!

Managed to get a few walks in, including this park in an old quarry at Upper Ferntree Gully

Went for a walk at the 1001 Steps near Berwick, mum used to take me here.

Then called in at the Berwick Cemetery for a quick hello to mum and Simon, love that this place overlooks Berwick, is just up the road from where we used to live, and you can hear tennis balls being hit on the tennis courts near by.

Louise and I caught up with Brigit at the Hatter and the Hare for brunch one morning

Quite a magical place

The food was delicious

And so were the cakes

Then it was time to head back to Canberra. We headed home via Lakes Entrance where we stayed the night. We stopped for a lovely lunch at the small town of Rosedale. This cafe is now on our must stop list.

Home made hearty vegetable and barely soup with a very yummy warm cheese scone!

Enjoyed a walk across the lake at Lakes Entrance

and a walk along a tiny section of 90 mile beach

One of the statues along the foreshore

The next morning we drove to Orbost, then instead of heading to Cann River then up to Nimatabel, we took the Bonang Highway from Orborst to Delegate. Not sure you would call it a highway but it was 110km of winding road. ( We did know what we were getting ourselves in for)

It was a lovely drive, up through National Parks, Old Growth Forests and not much in the way of civilization so quite remote. It was a lovely drive. Stopped a few times to smell the forest and listen to the birdlife and check out the pink wildflowers.

We came across a sign warning us to slow down and watch out for the emu! Fortunatley we did and he was just around the corner. We stopped to take a photo, we didn't get out the car as he was coming over to check us out too!

Nice to finally arrive home after lunch in Nimatabel. We had very enjoyable adventure.