Saturday, October 27, 2012

Relaxing Weekend

Henry and I headed out for a weekend get-away to a little town called Daylesford which is known for its Day Spas. There is also a main street that has lots of shops to visit and restaurants. It's two hours from Melbourne by train and a bus ride.

We started our Saturday morning by having a wonderful breakfast at a french restaurant called Rouge. After that, we hopped on the train and started making our way to Daylesford. We arrived there in the early afternoon, found the bed and breakfast we were staying at called The Manse, and luckily enough our room was ready for us. The B&B was great and we loved our room. Just to give you an idea, there were a total of six rooms, two on the bottom floor plus a day spa area and four rooms on the second floor. Our room was on the second floor.

Waiting patiently for Rouge to open.

On the train ready to go.

The Manse B&B.


Below are a few pictures of our room.

This had our breakfast supplies, cereal, bread, coffee, tea, butter, jam, milk, etc. The only thing missing was some fresh fruit.



I know your asking why I put a picture of the toilet in here, but it is a very unique toilet from back in the day. It was like a flushable pit toilet. A bit strange.

The view from our room.

Not sure what these are, but thought they were pretty.


Saturday started out sunny, but quickly turned cold and rainy so we didn't do much and just made it a lazy day. That evening we went to dinner at place called Perfect Drop and the food was lovely and so were the drinks.

These drinks were DELICIOUS and strong.


Sunday was a beautiful sunny day. We had breakfast and then headed out for the day. The first thing we did was walk around Lake Daylesford. It was quite a large lake so we took our time strolling around, taking pictures, and just enjoying the scenery. Next we went to the botanic gardens to have a nice lunch at the Wombat Hill House. It was nice, but not sure I would consider it a botanic garden. We walked around for a bit and then found a spot in the grass to relax and read. That evening we went to dinner at a place called Kazuki's which is a Japanese restaurant. Again, the food was great!


 Several pictures from around the lake.











Cute little ladybug.

On our way up to the botanic gardens.



View from the top of a tower that we walked up at the gardens.




Monday was the day for our massages. I was SUPER excited, Henry was looking forward to it too, but I was way more excited...haha. After our massages we just relaxed for a while and then went to lunch at a place called Larder. Great food. From there we went back to the lake to hang out, read, and enjoy the weather. We headed back to Melbourne that evening. We had wonderful, relaxing, and lazy time...and that's exactly what we wanted to do.

Second day at the lake. This was the view from where we were sitting.

This too.

This duck was very curious, he kept coming very close to us and then I think he just got bored and walked away.

This bird was walking near us and eating everything in sight.

This guy was eating away too.

Henry didn't know I took this picture. He was out like a light!!!

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Cathedral Range State Park

The four of us, and our friends Carl and Rachel (whom we met through Scott and Courtney) joined us for a weekend camping trip to Cathedral Range State Park. It was a great weekend to go camping because the weather was PERFECT! Couldn't have asked for better weather. We took off Friday night after dinner, and it was about a 2 hour drive from our place. When we got into the park we saw two deer just hanging out and one happend to be standing in the road just starring at us, and he was literally a deer caught in head lights. We sat there waiting for a couple of minutes for him to move, but it didn't, so we started moving slowly and it eventually moved out of the way. It was late when we arrived so we put up our tents, had a beer, and then went to bed.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, and when hiking for about 4 hours. We headed up the Neds Gully trail which was surrounded by trees and kept the heat and sun off of us for the most part. The hike wasn't super difficult, but we were constantly going up hill forever it seemed and then at certain parts it levelled out, but not for very long. The first look out we went to was Neds Peak, although beautiful we couldn't see much because we weren't high enough above the trees. We had lunch, relaxed, and took some pictures and headed to the next trail which was Cathedral Peak. It took us about 20 minutes, uphill the entire way, to reach the top. It was exhausting! The view on the other hand was just gorgeous. We spent a good amount of time up there relaxing (again), enjoying the view and our surroundings.

After that, we started heading back down the mountain. It was downhill the entire way, even though it may sound easy, I prefer walking up hill. Our legs were tired and shaky, and with a few stops along the way we finally made it back down. When we got back to our campsite we cooled off by the creek and stuck our feet in the very cold yet refreshing water. We had some snacks, a couple of us drinking cold beers while others were drinking wine, and just sat around resting our tired selves.

For dinner, I had made a huge pot of chilli at home and brought it with us. We heated it up along with some cornbread that Rachel had made and sat around the warm fire. On top of that we had homemade chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate cupcakes. Yum!

The next morning we got up had some breakfast, packed up, and parted ways with Carl and Rachel. We headed down to a little town called Healesville to get some lunch and grab a few beers at the White Rabbit Brewery. Yippie! This Australian beer is delicious, we haven't found many that are. We had some good sandwiches from a little cafe down the street and then headed back to the White Rabbit. The four of us sat outside for a couple of hours just chatting and playing a dice game. Another relaxing day. Before heading home we grabbed some meat pies from the restaurant next door to eat for dinner, so we didn't have to cook. =)

Henry making us eggs for breakfast.




The creek was about a 15 second walk from our campsite.

Doing dishes.

Emma making us sandwiches for our big hike.

And were off, with Tony leading the way.

Yup, he is taking off his pants, but just from the knees down...haha



Below are pictures from Neds Peak.





Views of the hike up to Cathedral Peak.


Pictures from the top of Cathedral Peak.

Emma enjoying the warm weather.






Henry almost stepped on this guy. I'm glad he didn't.


This was a super tiny red spider. I have never seen anything like, just wanted to share it with you.

Back from the hike and eating crackers and dip, and chips. A nice healthy treat after a long hike. =)

Tony kept his beer in the water to keep it cool.

Tony feeding Emma beer. That's love.



Our first campfire since we have been in Australia! So happy. Most places don't allow them.

Heating up chilli.

Warmin up the cornbread. So good!

This is a kookaburra bird. He decided to hang out with us by the fire for a bit. They are native to Australia and there LOUD call sounds like some one laughing. No joke, it's pretty funny, for about a minute.

We made it!





Mmmm...beer...yes please!



Happy faces with beer to go.