2010 Holiday Road Trip: Beechworth

Back from our journey and time to reflect on the places we visited. 

We set off for Beechworth on 1 January 2010; back to our favourite inland town and our honeymoon destination ten years ago.  It has a sentimental place in our hearts.  We took a peak at the new restaurant which has replaced "The Bank" restaurant where we spent our wedding night ...but this time with three children in tow.

It is a beautifully restored town where gold was first discovered in 1852. Thousands of hopefuls rushed to the gold fields in search of their fortunes.  Miners came from around the world including Europe, UK, USA and Asia. From a humble settlement of campsites and timber huts, rapid social and economic change occurred with the arrival of mining families and businesses to support the growing community.

Beechworth has all the sensibilities of a grand 19th century town with wide, tree-lined streets, lined with deep granite gutters and shady, century-old verandahs.  Not to mention the famous Beechworth Bakery and a great bike riding trail.

Our favourite Beechworth Post Office in Ford Street was completed in 1870.

Centrally located on three acres in historic Beechworth, overlooking the famous Beechworth Gorge is The Old Priory where we stayed.  We seemed to have the whole place to ourselves,with its Hogwartian dormitories crammed with bunk beds, timber staircases leading on to nowhere and dimly lit, panelled sitting rooms, as well as a utlility room with a ... table tennis table.  What fun!

Charly and I took an early morning walk in the spitting rain to Lake Sambell Reserve which was once a major gold mine site where hydraulic sluicing severely impacted on the environment and landscape. It has been attractively rejuvenated into a beautiful lake with adjacent Chinese and Aboriginal gardens.  But time to pack and off to Melbourne via Glenrowan.

Tassie here we come!

We are off.. as soon as I pack. 

Tania, Riley and the Dancing Lion ... and Us

Foreign Lands
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.

If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships.

To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.

We met Tania McCartney, author of Riley and the Dancing Lion, at the Handmade Markets in Canberra after stalking err... I mean admiring... her blog for some time. We were delighted to make her acquaintance and convey our effusive enthusiam for her writing, and partake of a candy cane from her impeccable stall. But while we were busy declaring our fanatical addiction to her blog and revealing our mutual acquaintance with Shazza, and suggesting a Canberra sequel to her other book, Beijing Tai Tai, and putting our name down to buy a copy of her planned chapter book and heaping praise on her skill as a party planner, we completely failed to inspect the book or buy a thing! So, off to the official launch we shall go with every intention of putting our money where our mouth is, and requesting a signed copy.

Little Wanna had such fun that night colouring-in a sheet depicting one of the exquisite illustrations from Riley and the Dancing Lion. Which just goes to prove that the book is a winner with its intended audience. We look forward to reading it in full and flying off to a foreign land.

What a Day.

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An Apple a Day

Sophie Uliano's Veggie Cleaner Spray

Ingredients:

1 cup water
1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
20 drops grapefruit seed extract
Combine all ingredients in a large container. Then, transfer to a spray bottle with a pump. Spray mixture on produce, and rinse thoroughly after 5 to 10 minutes.

From Oprah's Earth Day

First week back at school and the final term for the year. Little Wanna will be a big school next year. Then it will be lunch boxes and apples for everyone; a veritable process line on the kitchen bench and what a challenge that will be. A boy who won't eat any fruit except strawberries but is quite happy with Vegemite sandwiches. A girl who won't eat sandwiches and prefers a narrow range of hot noodles, pasta or rice in a thermos. Food that needs to stay fresh hanging in a school bag in a hot corridor all morning. Ice block coolers in insulated bags. Cupboards full of various shaped containers, dry foods, vacuum-packed foods, snack foods, cling films, lunch wrap and plastic straws. Then when they come home, there is only one tiny nibble on the corner of a sandwich round and you wonder how many times that apple can keep going between home and school.

Happy Birthday

Here I Love You
by Pablo Neruda

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Happy Birthday Dear Heart. xxx

School Holiday Bear Hunt

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh ,oh!
Grass,
Long, wavy, grass.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Swishy swashy, swishy swashy.

....OH NO IT'S A BEAR!!!

Quick!
Through the cave, tiptoe, tiptoe,
Through the forest, stumble trip, stumble trip,
Through the river, splish splosh, splish spolosh,
Through the mud, squelch squelch, squelch squelch,
Through the grass, swishy swashy, swishy swashy.
Run to the house, run up the stairs,
Oh oh forgot to shut the door!
Run back downstairs, shut the door,
Run back up, to the bedroom,
Jump into bed, pull up the covers,

WE ARE NEVER GOING ON A BEAR HUNT AGAIN!!