Woke up to an expected rainy morning …and patchy rainy day actually!
Packed up and headed towards the Yarra Valley, another of Australia’s well known wine regions. Unfortunately, it’s close to Melbourne…and it’s the weekend!
I pick my wineries at random, and my first stop was Yering Station. I got drawn to the beautiful architecture of their events and restaurant hall.
Just as I got out the car it started pouring, but luckily stopped after less than 15min. I walked down to the red brick building where the tastings are and decided to hand over my $15 and have a taste of their mid-range wines. The whites were soft on the palate while the reds just didn’t have to same bang taste that I’m used to. The reason being that these are cooler climate reds …so the tastes don’t quiet develop as richly as the hot climate wines as in the Barrosa Valley, South Australia. The lady who was doing my tasting for me found a wine that I did like… lucky me in was a reserve Shiraz for $190 per bottle … a little over budget I reckon!!! 2014 Vintage. Hahahaha. The 2016 had a similar taste and was 50 per bottle.
I then had a look around a few places online on what their lunch offerings were like…bound to be tasty but also many places were pretty expensive! I landed on De Bortoli. It wasn’t busy yet and they let my scruffy ass in …so that’s a good start!!
There was fresh focaccia and olive oil which was super! I ordered the crusty skinned barramundi with a side dish of cauliflower with pear and walnut. It was very tasty, the flavours all worked great together. It was $50 for the meal. Which is pricey but once very blue moon is fine.
To change up the mood entirely I headed further north to find my free camp site for the next two nights in Toolangi Rec Reserve. I couldn’t set up my tent though as it was raining so hard …I needed to wait for a gap. The temperature was due to plumet as yet another cold front approached. I waited 20min or so in the car until the rain stopped. Luckily my gap in weather was long enough to pitch the tent and so I was ready for the night. As I still had a few hours of light left I decided to explore a couple of waterfalls in Kingslake NP, near me.
First stop was Mason Falls. Driving through Kingslake Village though I was stopped in my tracks by a huge hailstorm that seemed to have come after blue skies showed up. The streets were covered white. It was 2C. Luckily the hail was small so the car didn’t get damaged!
After it stopped I drove slowly to the falls. Somehow …by sheer luck I managed to walk down to see them as well as get a beautiful show by a lyrebird all without getting rained or hailed upon. As a matter of fact it was blue skies and sunshine!
I was a few minutes down the road, heading to Wombelano Falls when the weather turned again, and the hail was sent down!! Only this time as it stopped hailing it started to snow!!!! My first Aussie snow experience!
I was talking to my mom on the phone as it was happening.
Once it was done, I again drove slowly to the next Falls so as not to slide on any ice build-up. It was only me and another car parked up. The weather had cleared miraculously yet again, and I set off on the 1.5km loop.
Unfortunately, the loop was mainly downhill, fairly muddy and got cold wet feet pretty quick! The rain waters were running down the track like a stream.
The falls were also pretty far away from the viewing platform and not too fantastic. Oh well got some exercise in , in some freaking cold temps .
I was glad that I didn’t get caught in more rain… until the return trip from the falls where I got soaked from the whole track being overgrown with very wet bushes !!! Aaarrrgghhh!!! Got in the car, heater on and headed back to camp with way too much excitement and cold for one day!!
Got changed into dry and hopped in the sleeping bag! Stayed there the night as rain passed by every few hours! The temps had remained so low that there was still frozen hail around my tent on my return.
