We had spent our first and very comfortable night in David and Kay’s guest room in their mud-brick self built mansion. There had been a briefly uncomfortable feeling as Buddy, their dog, had peered longingly at us through our French doors – he lives outside on the veranda – but we got over that and fell asleep.

We awoke to rain which drifted across the property while we breakfasted. The rain did eventually desist and we embarked upon an excursion that David and Kay were keen to take us on. We were heading to Tarra-Bulga National Park, in the Strzeleki Hills [pronounced Strez-leki] for a fern walk. The ferns in question were tree ferns which were on Francine’s hit list for New Zealand. However, if all went to plan today, she’d be seeing them ahead of time. [Speaking of ahead of time, I’ve already seen a couple of dragonflies that were on my NZ hit list.]

I say “we were heading for” but David’s idea of heading for is more like steering an oscillating course  which might, if you are lucky, average to the correct direction. We were soon off the tarmac on on gravel forest roads. I’d call them tracks but in Oz they seem to be considered to be roads. David’s recently acquired Land Rover Discovery 4 felt in its element. David had two satnavs, one in the car and one on his smartphone. Both remained studiously turned off. Eventually he accosted a local and asked how far his target road was. Go figure.

We did eventually arrive at the car park and rumbling tummies demanded lunch. We were surrounded by a small gang of Crimson Rosellas which also expressed an interest in our lunch. Shy they were not. I’m sure to locals they are as irritating as seagulls can be in the UK but feeding a parrot is something memorable to us.

The walk through the trees took us down into a gulley which we crossed via a pedestrian suspension bridge. Tree Ferns were all around. Francine was in her element. Giant gum trees towered above us, too, and we even caught a fleeting glimpse of a Lyre Bird as it rummaged in the forest litter. It was not about to pose for a tourist photo but at least we’d now seen one.

Many will know of my legendary love of children. [Ahem] Along with dogs, children are one of the things I tend to avoid given the choice. I wasn’t. Not only do David and Kay have a dog – he’s mostly quiet and therefore OK – but they were also baby-sitting their grandson Jaxon for two days. Jaxon was, of course, with us, too. Here is a very rare photograph.

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Today we left our self-catering cottage in Metung to head for our friends, David and Kay, in Darnum, near Warragul, Victoria. This is a stepping stone on our way back towards Melbourne where we will catch our flight to New Zealand. David and Kay are friends that we met a few years ago in Southern France when their campervan, which is garaged in England, suffered a mechanical. They limped into our favourite French dairy sheep farm site for repairs to be arranged. They have visited us in the UK and now it is our turn to visit them.

Our route was pleasant enough though unexceptional save for a side trip back into the mountains to see an historic old mining town called Walhalla. Being back into the mountains and given our meteorological track record, it also took us back into the grey and rain. Victoria’s weather is suffering an unsettled spell.

Perhaps because of the general conditions, we appeared to have Walhalla to ourselves; there appeared to be no other tourists in town. This, I suspect, is a very unusual state of affairs. I’m sure that the place would normally be heaving with tourists. Not today. Indeed, several of the few businesses hadn’t even opened. One coffee shop was open and we bought a couple of espressos/short blacks [the Australian term] which we soon regretted and threw away after a couple of sips.

The town had a western feel and many charismatic buildings still remain. Here’s a few images, taken before the rain began, to give you a flavour. The building that spans the river, incidentally, is the old fire station. Wonderful.

We briefly considered buying replacements for our discarded coffees from another open establishment but, as the rain had started and as there weren’t even any other people to watch, there seemed little point in dallying so we hopped back in the car and continued to Darnum, arriving at 16:00.

David and Kay’s place is called Wallaby Wood. It is an expansive house standing in 40 acres, much of which is wooded with gum trees. David has recently celebrated his 70th birthday and has been living here with Kay for 30 years.

Walking into the house, I was immediately struck by the unusual appearance of the building materials. The main structure of the house is made of mud bricks, mud bricks that were all individually handmade by David and Kay themselves, fashioned from clay dug from the site itself. The bricks were made in moulds, some of which were wooden, these also being made by David. Inside the house, all else is large wooden beams and pillars, also individually cut and fitted by this pair of artisans. The combination reminds me rather of a Swiss chalet, mainly because of the extensive wood – I doubt the Swiss would be using mud bricks. It was an enormous self-build effort that must have been a labour of love. Given the situation and outlook, I can fully understand why.

David took us on a 30-minute bush walk to acquaint us with some of the wilder parts of the property. We did see a Kangaroo bounce past just beyond the boundary fence. What a place.

Today we bad farewell to Francine’s brother and sister-in-law, with the requisite weepy eyes, of course, and headed for Metung on the south coast, where we have a self-catering chalet booked for the night.Regrettably our old weather jinx was in action and a darkling sky was throwing occasional rain at us. We left Stanley at 09:00 and 9°C.

Our route took us along the Great Alpine Way over Mount Hotham. Francine’s brother had been keen to warn us that the road could be quite tricky and that it would be cool/cold at the summit. Once we hit the ascent, for anyone used to driving on European alpine roads and/or mountain roads in Spain, it was clear that this road was actually a doddle, being smooth tarmac all the way and relatively wide (i.e. two generous lanes). If you can’t drive on this, you shouldn’t be driving at all.

Another friend had described the drive as being bleak. On the lower slopes, we were looking at the grey clouds beneath us in the valley through the leafy canopy of trees. As we climbed higher, however, the leafy trees were replaced largely by bare skeletal frames of trees. We began to see what he meant.

Between Stanley and the beginning of our ascent, the temperature had risen to 11°C. As we climbed towards the col on the road over Mount Hotham, the temperature quite naturally fell inexorably. Once we’d gained enough altitude, the white lines gave way to yellow lines, supposedly more visible in snow. The precipitous left hand side of the road also became edged with substantial snow poles. Every so often, a pole bore the words, “Keep right of poles”. Excellent advice, I’d say, given the hundreds of metres drop beyond.

We paused for a more scenic view. If you look in this picture you’ll see the road winding its way up the mountain. If you squint just to the right of centre, you may be able to see a small white shape. That white shape is a vehicle wedged in the vegetation on the precipitous hillside beneath the stretch of road. Clearly this had not heeded the warning to “keep right of poles”. :O

A little distance before the summit, we paused again by a wall of snow, the snow being about all our restricted visibility permitted us to see at this point, with the temperature on our car’s satnav display reading 1°C. Over the top at 1845m/6050ft, the car briefly recorded 0°C.

“Come to sunny Australia”, they said. Well, there had been a bit but precious little.

Our descent down the southern side of the  mountain towards Metung was gentler and took us through Omeo [“Omeo, Omeo, wherefore art thou Omeo?”] where, now being about 13:00, we availed ourselves of a cafe. Judging by the other clientele, it looked like a centre for WI meetings. Muscling in on the nattering ladies, a mug-sized cappuccino revived us after the hairpin-rich climb up.

The view from our coffee table revealed that we’d inadvertently parked our rental car outside a shop whose sign just had to be a mistake: “Cuckoo Clock’s”, read the sign across the top. Hmmm?

[Aside: Incidentally, we had left behind in Beechworth a cafe whose shop sign reads “PEDDDLAR”. The sign is comprised of two engraved stones butted together, one reading “PEDD” and the second reading “DLAR”; and yes, it IS a mistake. Being engraved stone, they decided it would be too expensive to fix, though.]

During a short wander around Omeo, shortened further by the rain beginning again, we passed a handful of properties empty or businesses closing – a town having a hard time, methinks. Sad.

Finally we arrived in Metung and checked in to our accommodation where we were, indeed, expected. Wonderful! Our apartment is spacious and has a reasonably equipped kitchen. For some evening entertainment, we decided to self-cater. There was a village store in Metung which had almost countless ways to get rat-arsed but very little in the way of real food, save for a bag or two of Brussel sprouts which should have been discarded last week. There was a Fish and Chip shop (shut) and a bakery (also shut). A man wandered past us muttering “everything is shut”. We muttered “food to cook”, he further muttered, “Lake’s Entrance”.

We drove the 15 miles to the descriptively name town of Lake’s Entrance where we found a very good Woolworths supermarket [not the same Woolworths as the now defunct British High Street tat shop]. Here, we found a much more exciting selection of ingredients and bought everything for an adventurous Aussie evening meal based on Kangaroo Fillet Steak together with some Kangaroo and Bush Tomato Sausages. The sausages were entirely superfluous but I couldn’t resist them. Wonderful, some dinkum Aussie fare.

In our cottage, a sign on our refrigerator includes the request, “Please keep noise levels on Verandah’s to a minimum after 11:30 PM”. Again!?

You’ve met the Oxford Comma, now meet the Aussie Apostrophe.

Francine has been digging around in a pamphlet containing walks in the vicinity of Beechworth and has settled on one taking in Ingram’s Rock, where wild flowers are mentioned. The written route of the walk is actually a circular walk beginning and ending in Beechworth itself but we’ve  already explored Beechworth so we chose to begin at one of the more interesting points en route, the Powder Magazine, which also has a parking area. The Powder Magazine was a gunpowder store for the gold mining activity in the late 19th century. It was designed with care so that, should there be an explosion, the blast all went upwards through the roof. Latterly, the roof was removed to prevent vagrants from sleeping in it.

We planned a there-and-back walk through the woodland of Beechworth Historic Park from the Powder Magazine to Ingram’s Rock, which would be a round trip of 6kms.

The path took us along an undulating track, mostly upwards on the way out. Steps had generally been cut on most of the uphill sections to make progress easier. Francine was delighted to find a couple of examples of what she suspected was an orchid on our outbound trip. Her first Ozzie orchid – excellent. As is often the case, precise species is thus far eluding us.

After three kilometres we we arrived at Ingram’s Rock. I was somewhat surprised to find a car parked on our approach. No matter, it had been a most enjoyable walk and the point was to get some exercise. Mr. Ingram was a Beechworth Mr. Bigwig from the mid-1800s. His named was engraved with the expanse of granite before us. Mr. Bigwig had taste; the views were worth the (mostly) gentle climb.

Shortly after beginning our return, Francine discovered another suspect flower beside the path. As she was photographing her new specimen she went into raptures over a third specimen and changed target. She could hardly contain herself, though access was very difficult. Francine had found two more orchids and the last, a Green Spider Orchid, was certainly one of nature’s masterpieces. We found a few more examples on the way down which were easier to access and photograph. Happy camper.

Also on the way back down, for those keen on scatology, we found an example of what we believe to Wombat poo. Wombats have a habit of leaving their scat on prominent rocks to mark their territory and this dollop of poo was certainly on a prominent rock in the centre of the path. There was also a large burrow which could well have been a wombat’s burrow though, since there was debris in the entrance, I doubt that it was still in active use.

Driving back out of the Beechworth Historic Park, we paused by Spring Creek again and met an Ozzie couple on tour bound for Tasmania. They shared an interest in orchids and pointed Francine back up the road a short distance where she’d find a Blue Sun Orchid. Four in a day – good stuff.

In February this year, we embarked on an Explore trip a trip to Namibia. On arrival at Heathrow airport, I had discovered that I’d left our joint camera charger at home. 2-week photographic trip and no charger. Brilliant, Franco!

This time I did better – we have two camera chargers and the cameras are getting almost constant use. We have now been on the road in Australia via Hong Kong for almost two weeks and this morning our electric toothbrush started bleating about needing a charge; two weeks is about its limit. And yes, given the title of this post, you have correctly surmised that there is no sign of the requisite toothbrush charger in our luggage. Brilliant again, Franco!

Francine’s brother Michel likes a challenge; he was immediately onto the Internet looking for replacements. We do have manual backup but six weeks of less effective manual brushing may well leave our dentist grumping at us and, armed with a nasty high speed drill, one really doesn’t want to upset ones dentist. There’s a curiously named store in these parts called The Shaver Shop, a “Personal Grooming Retailer”, where we could get a cheapo Braun electric brush for A$24 [~£15]. That beats £900 for a new Canon camera just to get an suitable charger and besides, we would be able use it in Spain and would no longer have to cart our home electric brush back and forth. The nearest Shaver Shop being in Albury, It was also a darn good excuse to have a day out exploring somewhere new.

Albury is just across the Murray River from Wodonga. In fact, the two cities seem to be treated as one, despite the Murray being the state border between Victoria and New South Wales and the pair being in different states. The drive was almost a straight shot and took us through delightfully rural rolling hills, atypical of what most people’s image of Australia might be. It also left behind the less than settled weather forecast for Stanley; we were enjoying largely blue skies.

[Aside: At this point it is worth noting that satnavs are somewhat less than crucial in this area with its limited set of road choices – if you can’t navigate here by yourself, you can’t navigate your way out of a paper bag. The satnav WAS helpful getting away from Melbourne airport, however, and would doubtless prove useful around Melbourne, again, later.]

Entering Wodonga, we passed sizeable development activity. What surprised us, given the amount of land available in Australia, was the way the new houses were shoe-horned in together. The roofs were damn nearly overlapping. Older developments around here tend to have a couple of acres each. Curious.

We crossed the Murray into NSW to where Michel had directed us to a free parking area. We bailed out and wandered into town where we found the Shaver Shop in a mall. Sure enough, a cheapo Braun electric toothbrush on special set us back a princely A$24. Problem fixed; not my memory, unfortunately, but the lack of toothbrush charger. Assuming I eventually remember to pack it to take it home, of course, I’ll have to change the Australian plug. With teeth happy that we didn’t have to break the bank, we began a more relaxed wander.

Albury has an old Victorian train station – well, it looks Victorian to a self-confessed art numbskull – one of the platforms of which is a kilometre in length. This and the brickwork make for an impressive building.

We paused for lunch at a cafe behind the museum of modern art. Lunch was a modestly sized open sandwich of sprouted rye bread topped with smoked salmon, cream cheese, finely shaved cucumber and some very tasty young radish leaves. Very inventive. Being near a modern art museum the lawn before us was almost inevitably decorated with what I assume was a piece of said modern art in the form of a giant bath plug and chain. Tate Modern, eat your heart out!

The unsettled weather from Stanley could be seen approaching but we had time to investigate the banks of the Murray and some lagoons beside it. This was big water and, apart from birds, we initially saw nothing. Finally though and simultaneously, we both noticed damselflies flitting along the grassy edge of two separate lagoons. Conditions were not the best and access was not great, despite my skipping over the protecting fence to get – tut, tut – but I did get one good shot, and in-cop to boot, of just about the most colourful damselfly I’ve ever clapped eyes on: The descriptively named Red and Blue Damselfly (Xanthagrion erythroneurum). Get your tongue around that binomial.

The skies had been darkening constantly and at last the rain began. We retreated.

Our last trip to Australia was in 2001. That was a 4-week trip during which time we were based in Sydney, with Francine’s brother Michel. Our highlight, though, was a 2-week camping trip using his pop-up camper trailer. One place we visited en route was Lake Hume. Lake Hume was created by damming and flooding a valley. Unfortunately, this project was also going to flood the town of Tallangatta so a new town of Tallangatta was built to replace the original. Tallangatta became known as “the town that moved”.

When the water in Lake Hume, a reservoir, is low enough, it is said that some remains of the original Tallangatta can be seen poking above the water. Normally what can be seen are the skeletons of now dead trees. At the time, long before our adopting digital photography, we snapped a rather contre-jour scene across the lake on 50 ASA slide film. Here’s Lake Hume 2001. Memories!

Photographers like trees in water as subjects so Francine was keen to return for a repeat visit in 2017 to see how things might have developed in the intervening 16 years. It was about an hour’s drive away. Memories faded by wine and with no Internet on the road, we couldn’t really remember where our original viewpoint had been. The one we eventually found was clearly a bit further right, with a large tree looming that wasn’t in the original; it certainly wasn’t 16 years of growth, either. The comparison gives the general idea, though. It also shows what flexibility a post-processing digital darkroom makes compared to happy snappy film. Here’s Lake Hume 2017.

Taking a slightly more circuitous route back, we stumbled across an agricultural scene. It looked very pastoral but also looked as if it could have been almost anywhere in Europe, to me. It is Australia, honestly.

As we neared home base, we dived off sideways back to Woolshed Falls again. Almost as soon  as we parked the car, though, the sun became covered by clouds so there was little in the way of action, save for a pair of Australian visitors, the female partner of which was picking her way over the rocks between the pools dressed in flip-flops and an ankle-length flower print dress. Very practical. I’m clearly letting the side down; I really must try to spruce myself up a bit next time I go climbing up waterfalls hunting odos.

A quiet day.

Francine had a hankering to visit Beechworth cemetery, where the main attraction seems to be a pair of Chinese Burning Towers. We were accosted by a local who wondered if we had “any rellies” buried in there. “No, just visiting”, we replied. Our new friend was retired but was engaged in research in the cemetery. The cemetery is divided into areas for the many different denominations represented. There are some 2000 Chinese settlers buried here. After a five or ten minute chat, our pal turned us loose and pointed towards the Chinese section where the Burning Towers were located.

We found The Chinese Burning Towers easily; they are pretty hard to miss. They date from 1857 and were used for burning paper prayers’’. Meals for the spirits of the dead were provided on the altar (1883) behind the towers . We wandered up through the Chinese section where all the headstones were inscribed with Chinese characters, indecipherable to us despite our recent 3-day stopover in Hong Kong. 😀

Our new friend reappeared as we were nearing the top of the Chinese section. There was a bit more chat before he keenly pointed out the gravestone of the last Chinese to be buried in the cemetery. It was unusual; one might say unique. It reads:

AH YETT Died at Reeds Creek 31st July 1932

What was unusual? The inscription on this gravestone was written in English. “Do you know why it was written in English?”, asked our new pal. “Being the last Chinese buried, there was no one left who could write Chinese script.” He uses that when he’s talking to school kids.

We returned via another small dam in Stanley. Completely unexpectedly, this small dam yielded an additional damselfly species. Identifying it was a bit of a conundrum. It was what Francine would call “a blue-striped pyjama job”. In the UK, these are of a particular couple of genuses. I searched the Australian species in those similar genuses without success. Then I noticed a feature that made me suspect this new characters true genus. Bingo!  A Wandering Ringtail (Austrolestes leda).

Stanley itself is now my highest scoring site with six species. That was unexpected.

Michel had suggested Sunday lunch on the deck of Gapsted Winery. Their website does a much more comprehensive job of explaining what’s what than I could here, so go look. Suffice to say that they make “cool climate” wines in “Australia’s Alpine Region”. Right. Michel is a member of their club and it looked like a jolly splendid place to while away an hour or two staring at some of their vines from our table.

There is a menu from which you can select individual dishes but Michel, an old hand at this caper, was keen on their degustation menu – three modestly sized courses that might actually leave room for our evening meal. You can choose to have just the food  for A$40 or get a glass of wine chosen to complement each course for A$49. No contest, bring me a drink! Actually, the first drink was a glass of bubbly. Michel, once again being designated driver, had to keep donating alcohol to be shared by Francine and myself. Ahhhh! For those who will undoubtedly ask, here’s the menu. 😉

And here, just to complete the detail, are the three individual courses that the above menu referred to.

Suffice to say it was an excellent lunch and far from extortionate. All their wines had been good so I couldn’t resist buying a bottle of their Tawny Port to help down some evening cheese. Carrying the port to the car was slightly delayed when Francine was distracted by a Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) which began hoping about the grass near the vines. It was an opportunity too good to miss.

We made it to the car but our departure was further delayed when progress came to an abrupt halt before getting off the property. Just before reaching the main road, Michel slammed on the anchors. “Echidna!”, he exclaimed, excitedly. Not surprisingly, really, as echidnas are rarely seen and here was one rummaging around on Gapsted’s front lawn right beside us. The echidna began nosing around in the detritus littering the Gapsted sign. I approached cautiously, thinking it would be nervous and wary. It did curl up once or twice, exposing its defensive spines, but essentially kept on with its business despite my watching it. Then, to our joint surprise, Edna Echidna began marching swiftly straight towards Francine.

We thought Edna would veer away as she approached Francine but no, she kept going and headed straight beneath a crouching Francine and between her legs. There she finally stopped, up against her right foot. Now what? After a pause we noticed movement, not forwards or backwards but a sort of shuffling, wriggling movement. Every now and then, we saw one of its powerful digging feet appear from under the skirt of spines. It seemed to be sinking slightly lower in the ground. Yes, it was excavating a hole, immediately beneath Francine. Whether it was beginning to construct a burrow under Francine’s backside or was just digging in search of food (echidnas are ant-eaters, BTW), I know not. We watched chuckling; mesmerized. Francine was besotted, as well she might be. What a privilege.

[Aside: I should just point out that Echidnas are monotreme mammals; that means, not to put too fine a point on it, “one hole for everything”: urinating, defecating and egg-laying (yes, it’s one of those curious egg-laying mammals along with the Duck-billed Platypus). I have no idea how one might actually sex an active, spikey, one-hole-for-everything kind of creature so Edna implies nothing as to gender and was simply a name we couldn’t resist. Edna is a Short-beaked Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus). Yes, there’s more than one echidna species, though this is the only species in Australia, I believe.]

Fresh from our chance encounter, a couple in Stanley, friends of Michel, had invited us all around for drinks and nibbles in the later afternoon. Coincidentally, the couple owns a property in Marseillan, one of our favourite parts of France, so it is possible that we may meet again. We sat around a roaring wood fire – it gets cool up here in the evenings – in an open hearth in their garden and passed a very convivial evening in jovial company.

Nothing was going to top Edna Echidna, though. What a thrill.

Time to be escorted again. In Stanley, at about 750m elevation, we are already in the high country but Michel had designs to take us up into the really high country. We were heading over 1500m to Mount Buffalo. The drive was 95 km and would take 90 mins, if you went directly there, that is. Naturally we didn’t.

The scenery on the way gets quite alpine-looking apart, that is from the fact that the trees tend to be gum trees. I’ve noticed a woeful lack of gum trees in the Austrian alps. Above a certain elevation, as the road winds and twists its way around the side of the mountain, the white lines suddenly switch to yellow. This is because yellow shows up better in snowy conditions whereas white tends to  … well, you get the idea. Part way up we stretched our legs beside a bridge over a stream with waterfalls tumbling down. From here, through the tree canopy we had a glimpse of a more precipitous waterfall near the beginnings of the water course up at the 1500m level where we were heading.

Francine, having strappy sandals on her feet, was not dressed for scrambling so I took my life in my hands armed with Francine’s camera and descended a slope of mostly loose-ish soil to get to the stream itself down at our current level. I wasn’t worried so much about falling into the torrent but if I’d damaged Francine’s camera … Luckily all went well. As I was scrambling back up said slippery slope a damselfly unexpectedly landed temptingly on a fern beside me. By the time I’d told Francine, it had performed a very effective disappearing trick.

Atop Mount Buffalo is a so-called Chalet. I say “so-called” because it’s bigger than anything called a chalet that I’ve ever seen. It was clearly grandiose in its day and is now the subject of some serious restoration work. It remains impressive but apparently lacks some modern tourist expectations, like en suite bathrooms. Michel remembered to snag a picture of it on his phone.

Opposite the chalet is the obligatory view point allowing us to look back at the way we had ascended.

Having played tourist at the chalet area long enough we drove around on top – it’s a something of a high plateau and found somewhere for a bite of lunch (water bodies but no odos – still too cool up here, I suspect) and paused to take in the atmosphere of an alpine lake that belies the altitude. Does this look as if it’s at 1500m? I think not.

On the way back we called into Bright, which, off season, was a pleasant enough town complete with a grassy recreation area (and a brewery) beside a picturesque river. It was still quite busy now though, so in season, would be absolutely heaving with tourists and would be best avoided, for those who prefer peace and solitude.

For the last couple of days we have at last been joined in Stanley by Francine’s sister-in-law, Sandrine, who has hitherto been otherwise occupied in Sydney. We’ve had a hoot re-educating her to drink wine instead of fermented tea which is:

1. as disgusting as it sounds (I tasted it), and
2. allegedly good for your gut (friendly bacteria, and all that).

Today we were off to continue the vinous education by poisoning a few more friendly bacteria. Between Stanley and the Hume Freeway lies Indigo Vineyard, the owners of which are in the habit of staging lunchtime Jazz in the Vines events. As the title implies there is, of course, music. Food is also available but centre-stage is wine with water provided for the unfortunate drivers.

As the title also implies, these events are usually held amongst the vines of the vineyard. On this occasion, regrettably, there are storms floating around in the forecast so a wary organizer had relocated the event closer to the facilities buildings where a selection of gazebos covering  an array of tables had been erected, just to be on the safe side.

We coughed up our A$15 each entrance fee, grabbed a table under a gazebo and sat with our new Australian friends, a couple that have a place at Marseillan in France, who had also pitched up to enjoy the four piece set of musicians entertaining us as we drowned bacteria in alcohol and nibbled. As the sky darkened to several particularly threatening shades of slate grey, we revisited our gazebo decision and grabbed most of another table further under cover in a more substantial building beside the stage.

We were just in time. The wind announcing the storm front blew through. Several other bacteria drowning attendees hung on to their respective gazebos lest they got relocated back to the vines again. The wind was soon accompanied by lashing rain. Good decision, Mr. Organizer.

The music was good, the wine was good and the company was good. What more could one want? Well, some more typical Australian weather and less of a British squall, perhaps. We are 12,000 miles away, after all.