Easter is coming

Chocolate heaven

Federation Square

Children’s park

After visiting a few shops on Brunswick Street we caught the tram to the NGV art centre. It was getting warm and we needed a rest.

Decided to have a look at some of the more design focused exhibitions of furniture, porcelain and jewellery. As always very fascinating.

After an afternoon rest we dined at Freyja a contemporary ‘Nordic’ approach to \240Australian dining on Collins street.

The restaurant was different but excellent. Waffle with trout roe and marinated octopus for starters with John Dory for mains washed down with Lois Gruner Veltliner from Austria. Not cheap but really good.

Ladies at market

Quirky local pulling bike, pram, trailer train!

Where else. A tasting at the local wine bar

Jordan working the bar

Brunswick Road

Freyja roe and bread waffle

Wall art

Market

NGV design and porcelain collection

NGV atrium

Jewellery exhibit

The other sections are more interesting detailing the personal journey of many migrants who found themselves in Australia at various times. Again a mixed bag of racism but also success stories through many sacrifices of those involved.

Little mention of the Aboriginal experience of seeing all these newcomers taking over their land and treating them as third class citizens ranking after the white European elites and the rest of the world.

Not sure what to make of all this. The migrant experience is a mixed bag of emotions. Embracing the new country but longing for the one they knew and had to leave behind. I guess it is very personal to the individual driven largely by the reason they sought to come here in the first place and what they found when they arrived.

Chocolate heaven!

CBD

St Kilda baths

St Kilda market

Luna Park

Penny for your thoughts!

Immigration Museum

Ancient Greek statue

Exhibition hall floor

Some outfits

Floor

Multimedia presentation

More outfits

Spectacular old veils

Japanese inspired outfit

More outfits

Multimedia display

South Bank bridge

Seven. The number of goals we put past Man U

LILO cafe in Mornington. Great if you like green

Drove to Mornington , takes just over an hour, and stopped at LILO for breakfast.

Claudia Camilleri a young art student exhibiting at MPRG

Visited the Regional Art Gallery and saw some works from students, Mike Green lithographs of derelict interiors, beautiful sea flowers in copper by Julie Blyfield and a weird but wonderful video by Deborah Kelly.

Mike Green

Julie Blyfield

First wine tasting

Wine tasting at Crittenden, a Halliday five star winery. Beautiful chardonnays and Pinot noirs but also a few surprises. Los Hermanos Saludos an Australian txakoli, from gros mansang, no less, after the owner visited northern Spain and fell in love with the local wine. A TSM, Tempranillo blend with Shiraz and mataro from Heathcote. And an amazing savagnin, a relic of the CSIRO Albariño stuff-up, allowed to mature in a cask under flor to give the wine a sherry-like aroma and flavour. Really good and intriguing.

Entrance to Crittenden

Cellar door

Vines at estate

View from room

Accommodation at Mantons Creek vineyard. Lovely setting, good room. No one to meet and greet. No answer to phone calls.

Amazing setting for the vines

Thank god for the sign. No one here!

Accommodation

Beautiful morning with bright sunshine, light winds and cool temperatures.

Road out of accommodation

After coffee and croissant, headed to Arthur’s Seat base to catch the Eagle to the summit.

Cable cars take about 15 minutes to climb to 340 metres

Parks and picnic areas

A bit chilly at the top

The eagle has landed!

Cable cabs

Matthew Flinders cairn

Spectacular views from the lookouts

And on to the next wine tasting

Parings Estate

Parings is one of the original and a leading winery on the Peninsula.

Tasting room

Chardonnay and Pinot noir are the mainstays but Shiraz, the original planting, is a surprisingly good drop.

View to the vineyard

Visit Pt Leo Estate for a walk around the very impressive sculpture park and a late lunch

Entry

Queensland bottle tree

The park

Strange sculpture. Is that the Cookie Monster in his grasp?

Restaurant and cellar door in the background

Amazing crab pasta

Lamb back strap and croquet

What’s that kangaroo doing? Notice the other under the net!

Wonderful meal. Probably the best we’ve had for a long time. Despite some really good ones in the last week.

Beautiful night with the moon darting in and out from behind clouds over the vineyards.

View from our balcony

The garden below our balcony

Started the day at The Epicurian with coffee and croissant and then drove to Frankston Arts Centre. Only two very small exhibitions but the centre is really more a theatre than a gallery. The stroll around the centre of Frankston depressed us. Nothing much looks very nice despite the arts precinct spruiking wall art and sculptures in the public areas.

Info sign explaining heirloom plants v hybrids

Decided to drive to Domana to visit Heronswood Home and Gardens a historic protected home in Dromana with two hectares of formal gardens.

The home is unfortunately closed and in need of renovations. The garden is also somewhat rundown and is being reworked. It is looked after by the Diggers Club, a NFP organisation dedicated to gardening with purpose, heirloom seeds and gardening education.

Lots of these succulents

A view of the home from the garden

Garlic? Or bulbs of some sort

National Trust property

Work on the new garden beds

Just down from the gardens is Dromana beach. Had lunch at Two Bouys and later had a nice long walk along Safety Beach.

Dromana beach

Small jetty at Dromana

Wine tasting at Montalto where the chardonnays were absent (only a 2016 and 2018 on tasting). Nice but….

The 2021 pinots were excellent though as was the Syrah.

Chauncy is a heritage-listed sandstone building in the town centre which originally housed the local town surveyor, Philip Chauncy.

Austrian blend of 17 varieties

The restaurant is run by a French chef and his Australian sommelier partner. Set seasonal menu with matching European wines.

Pigato from Liguria

After a very long lunch we headed to our accommodation at The Shiraz Republic.

Not going anywhere

The faithful Bedford

A republic wine venture

A small winery in the middle of nowhere that sells ‘shares’ to wine lovers who then get involved in the wine making process.

Cabins in the bush

Vines

Tomorrow is ‘stomping day’ where people converge to pick grapes and stomp them into juice!

It’s going to be interesting!

Walk in the vineyard

Rise and vine!

Wonderful start to the day with perfect sunny but fresh weather.

Drove to Heathcote for coffee and breakfast at an antiques place called Fetching Treasures cafe. Apart from toast and croissants they have an eclectic collection of antiques including furniture, clocks, mirrors and porcelain.

Waiting for her croissant

Drove to our booked wine tasting at Sanguine Estate about ten minutes out of town.

View from cellar door

The cellar door shed

Raring to go!

Lovely view from deck

Inside the shed

Relatively new vineyard, less than 20 years, but full of potential. Tasted a Shiraz/merlot rose’, Tempranillo as well as a number of Shiraz wines. Same grapes different wine making.

Tasting area

Back towards town we decided to visit the Pink Cliffs. Once a hydraulic sluicing site, mining activity in the 19th century washed away the top layer of earth and revealed the dramatic colourful cliffs. An effective but damaging mining technique.

The Pink Cliffs

High Street Heathcote

Back to town we walked the High Street exploring the few shops. We then t visited Chapoutier tasting room and spent quite some time eating local cheese made by a French company close by and drinking Chapoutier wines from Heathcote, the Pyrenees in Victoria and some French wines.

Chapoutier tasting room

Drove back to Shiraz Republic. The stomping session had just concluded so we ordered a pizza, ate some hobz biz zejt and relaxed with a vineyard walk and some TV.

Moon over the vines

But first a side trip just 10 minutes up the road to Colbinabbin, to see the artwork on the big silos. Not bad at all.

Historic depictions of the area

Mark practicing for the Grand Prix!

On towards Bendigo but first…..wine

Lake at Sutton Grange winery

Sutton Grange is a massive 400 hectare property south of Bendigo which combines horse training with wine making. The vines were planted in 1998 so quite a new venture but already enjoying success, mainly for their Syrah.

Headed to Bendigo and stopped for a beefy lunch at Woodhouse, a beautiful steak restaurant.

After lunch decided to seek some inner peace and calm (anything to digest lunch) by visiting the biggest Stupa outside of Asia.

Buddhist Stupa

This is massive and a work in progress as more work is needed inside and out.

Prayer wheels galore

Good advice

More wheels

Inside

A jade Buddha

Fierce looking Buddha

Largest jade Buddha in the world!

A chubby Buddha representing the affluent and encouraging people to help less fortunate

Tour by the Buddhist monk

Say it 10,0000 times and…

The elephant at the Stupa

On to our accommodation, a historic manor house built in 1904 originally as the Anglican Bishop’s residence. At one time it became a home for orphaned children.

Langley Manor

Garden

Historic chapel used for weddings and music concerts

What a venue!

Inside

Bendigo by night

Sculpture near Bath Lane

Chancery Lane quiet on public holiday

Mostly quiet due to public holiday.

Park in town centre

Glass house

Art gallery exhibit

Visited Bendigo art gallery. The main exhibition had just ended and they were setting up the new. There were four permanent exhibitions that were worth visiting.

Art selection

Homeless

Ben Quilty Bali

That salad! Took longer to prepare than to grow

Started the drive to the Yarra Valley mid afternoon and took us just over two hours to get to Balgownie. Room upgrade meant we had a much bigger suite. Swim and steam room session to recover.

Yarra Estate our accommodation

Dinner at the restaurant was enjoyable.

Restaurant by night

Four Pillars gin distillery

High Street had a number of shops to browse including the gin distillery.

Gin paddle

Wine tasting at Yering Station.

Yering Station entrance

Tasted a premium museum selection of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.

On to Alowyn Gardens. A small garden developed over the last 26 years. There are different types of gardens such as French, vegetable, hedge, flowers, Japanese, etc.

Shady tree canopy

Zen garden

Hedgerows

French

Flowers

Pumpkins

Gourds

Dinner in Coldstream area at Meletos.

Nice meal finished off with….

Cannoli

Pink water lily

This was an excellent choice! 40 hectares and 40 ponds full of water lilies and lotus flowers. All shapes, sizes and colours. Magnificent!

Entry

Money’s pond

Fairy queen

Fairy

South American massive water lilies

Catching the view

Egyptian lilies complete with crocodile

Australian native lilies

Huge leaves growing well out of the water

Yarra river tributar

Golden lotus garden

Well worth the visit.

Continued on the road to Warburton. Pleasant drive. A couple of interesting shops on the High Street. Lunch at Little Joe’s, a delightful crisp pizza snack. Coffee at Silva Coffee Roaster.

Tried visiting the Seville Estate winery but was closed despite the sign that said ‘open 7 days’!

Back to the hotel and did a tasting at Balgownie. Nice wines but most of the grapes from Heathcote.

Drove to Melbourne airport, dropped off the car and flew back home!

Vintage car get together

De Bortoli vineyard

Entry to chocolatier

Did someone say Easter egg?

Decisions decisions!