Healsville Sanctuary

It's a drive north-east of Melbourne on the Maroondah Highway, passing through the Yarra valley and past many of the areas splendid wineries.
Healsville Sanctuary is worth a visit, though it was rather crowded when we were there - just after Christmas.

You can see platypus, a very good flying display and, of course, koalas. They don't move much and therefore make themselves easy to photograph.

There's plenty of wildlife in the back yard. Clearing away a mass of ivy we found some large spiders and several geckos. That's my rear view.

Mornington Peninsula

Arthur's Seat is another huge chunk of Victorian granite, named because it supposedly resembles Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.

The views are magnificent. You can make out the tallest Melbourne buildings over 70 km way.

The sea was cool and refrshing to swim in. You need to be a resident of Dromana to lease a beach hut.

Werribee Mansion, Victoria

Werribee Mansion is about 30km south-west of Melbourne, on the road to Geelong. Entrance is free to the gardens and the Mansion.
The gardens are sumptuous, including the national rose garden and a huge range of native trees and shrubs. The manor is beautifully preserved and provides a great insight into the lives of 19th Century landowners, their servants and the farm workers.

One of the many farm buildings on the estate, this one a farm worker's cottage with a kitchen garden full of flowers, herbs and vegatables.

There is a sculpture park in the grounds. You need to providfe your own model for the picture.

Chirstmas Day in Melbourne

It's a backyard barbecue on Christmas Day. no frost, no darkness, just lots of good food, wine and Australian hospitality provided by Louise and Pete in their newly purchased house.

It may not be a state-of-the-art design but it pumps out some good music!

My mouth waters just looking at it. I might have to go back next Christmas!

We don't just take on the Aussies at cricket.

It's all to much for some people.

Rutherglen

Look at that blue sky, this is more like it! Thanks to the kindness of Rick and Janette, we are able to stay at Turon House on Main Street in Rutherglen for a few days. The house is immaculately preserved. I like to think that i improved it slightly by pruning the abundant rose bushes. We visit a winery for tasting and lunch and I get two rounds of golf at Corowa, across the Murray River and into New South Wales.

The area was suffering from a plague of locusts. you have to feel sorry for the farmers - a l0ong drought, then floods, now locusts everywhere.

This is rush hour in Rutherglen.

Beechworth, Victoria

Beechworth, getting on for 300km north-east of Melbourne. It grew rapidly during the gold rush of the 1950s. About 3000 live here now. As in the Bright valley, beautiful countryside, no mining these days, instead there is plenty of fruit, cereal and livestock farming and, of course, wineries.

We sample some of the delights in a delightful sweetshop on the main street and then, further along, indulge in the pies at the bakery. Ned Kelly found himself on trial and subsequently imprisoned here.

It must have been very rowdy in the gold rush days, wonderfully peaceful now though.

We take the road to Chiltern and on to Rutherglen.

Mt Buffalo, Victoria

There are dramatic views from the tops of the sheer cliffs.

Even better views if you decide to go hang gliding. No flyers out when we were there, this is the take-off ramp.

You are not supposed to feed the wildlife but this chap was rather persistent and kindly cleaned the picnic table for us.

We found this one sunbathing in a sunny spot in the forest.

Australian Alps

December 2010, approaching the height of summer in Australia but 200km north-east of Melbourne in the Australian Alps ( a bigger area of snow in winter than covers Switzerland I am told) it is not at all hot. The chalet by the creek is in a great spot but you can see from the umbrella what the weather was like.

Good weather for hiking and this is the Eurobin falls. The water cascades down from Mt Buffalo (1723m) which is a huge flat toppoed slab of granite that can be seen from miles around.
The other chalet near the top of Mt Buffalois not open for business these days, it was quite spooky wandering around, reminded me of the Overlook Hotel - even though I know many scenes were filmed in Borehamwood, Herts!

Somebody left a piece of granite lying around. I asked Trish to move it out of my frame.