EC-Rider Travels

Today I said farewell to Melbourne where I have spent the happiest month thanks to the extraordinary kindness and hospitality of Tim, Sarah and Caroline Dehn. I felt it was a little like leaving home!

Luckily the apron strings are being only gradually severed as Tim, Sarah and I are taking a road-trip up to Sydney over the next four days. So with Tim at the helm, we left Melbourne mid-morning, heading North East through the beautiful, wine country of the Yarra valley. We then started climbing up into the hills on the most beautiful winding road of the Black Spur through unbelievably tall, straight gum trees and gorgeous tree ferns almost rain-forest in feel.

We stopped for a quick lunch in a place called Alexandra and then continued on our way. It was a beautiful drive through rolling hills to our left and right intersected by gum-tree lined avenues, often bordered with agapanthus which grow here like a beautiful weed. As do the Eucalyptus, native to Australia and of many, many different varieties (approx 900) with different coloured and shaped leaves and barks. These seem to happily live side by side creating wonderfully varied woodland and forests. The heavens suddenly opened and we came upon a field full of cockatoos racing around discussing how to get out of the rain – amazing to see. It was sad to see a a dead kangaroo and wombat on the side of the road, I am yet to see one alive in the wild!

We went through some serious rain and some hysterically named places many with a Scottish lilt – Bonnie Doon and Taggerty but my favourite has to have been Daddah Daddah Creek – until I found that we were in Wanga-bloody-ratta – only Henny will understand! We then came to another wine area full of immaculate vineyards and, like New Zealand, on surprisingly flat land. Indeed for the latter part of the journey it looked as though our Lord had got out his rolling-pin, it is so extraordinarily flat, but very beautiful with lots of beef and arable farms dotted between the vineyards.

We spent the night in Rutherglen with Kellie-Anne in ‘La Maison St Arnaud’, in her very comfortable B&B, a former ‘Convent Cottage’. We had a delicious dinner in the town and then watched the most amazing short film that Caroline had made together with Jamie, a guy in the UK (who she had never met) about long-distance love during COVID – so good and so clever. https://youtu.be/e4l9HZrCpCk