Well, we had a lovely weekend away, everything went without a hitch and the accommodation was absolutely lovely, it was a little cottage set in 8 acres of countryside, but only 2 min drive to the town. We left on Saturday morning and drove through the city and then headed North, not a traffic jam or roadworks anywhere, just 2 or 3 lane highways all the way,only seeing an occasional car when getting into the countryside. We drove straight to the spa and spent 2 hours in the ‘sanctuary’, with its different pools, steam rooms etc, then went in for our treatments. It was a lovely, relaxing experience.

On Saturday we drove into town and had brunch, then got geared up in our lake district walking gear and went for a walk in the ‘bush’. We had to drive through a fjord to get to the starting point, it was quite fast flowing and I nearly had a heart attack, convinced we were going to get washed down stream! All the locals were very excited as the waterfalls and a tourist attraction called the ‘blow hole’, where the gold prospectors blew a hole in the rock to divert a river, have been dry for the past 5 years, but were in full flow when we got there. The woman in the tourist information said excitedly  ‘the drought finally broke in May’, I know we said, we brought the weather with us, we are responsible!! It has officially been recognised as the coldest winter for 11 years and the wettest for 12 years, how great is that – Ggrrr!!!!

Sunday morning we went to a farmers market near the little old train station, there was a stall selling eggs in various sizes, including a size I haven’t seen in the UK – bum buster size!! (poor chicken eh!) We had a lovely meal  on Sunday night, all using produce within a 10 kilometer range, even the wine. Australia is fiercely protective of its local industries and proudly advertise anything that is Aussie produced, which is quite nice to see. Monday we went to see a monument to the ‘lost children’, a sad story about three little boys age 7,6 and 4 ( two of them brothers), they went exploring on a winters day in 1867 whilst their parents worked the farm, but got lost. The whole town came together to search for them every day for 2 weeks, but could not find them. Eventually their bodies were found 3 months later, huddled inside a tree for shelter. They had walked 17 kilometers in total, and were only 500m from a farm where they were found.We were going to walk this route, but it has not been re-opened yet following the fires last summer, strangely the fire went through the monument but did not damage the cairn or plaque. (See pics on Flickr). Daylesford was a lovely place and we will go back, still lots to see, and we saw kangaroos. Two want hopping past our front window, didn’t see any koalas though, we will probably go to a wildlife park when Sam & Tom come over. So it’s back to normality now.

I believe all three of my potential places of work have requested references now, including the district nurses, so you just know they are all going to want me to start at the same time, going to need to use my time management skills! We are going to need the money though because we have decided to send Ellie to the Grammar school, think it will be good for her and she is looking forward to going. Just waiting for her to get in from school then off to the mall as it is fathers day on Sunday here.

You will be please to know that it is the first day of spring here – and it’s raining! The reservoirs are 50% full now and they have lifted the water restrictions today, you can wash your car or water your garden whenever you want! They hope never to reinstate them, as the huge desalination plant is due to open soon also, I think it has taken a few years to build so that is good news. I wonder if they will sack the ‘water police’ now?