Drove a huge 50kms on Sunday to Daylesford NE of Ballarat. Daylesford is in an area known as the ‘spa country’ due to the number of natural mineral springs. It is about an hours drive from Melbourne and is very popular for weekend drives and holidays for Melburians. There are lots of cafes, restaurants, boutique shops, B&Bs, day spas and wellbeing getaways around. It is known as the place to come to relax, rejuvenate and regnerate. There is a bookshop in town that has 14 rooms full of books, new and secondhand – wonderful – spent some time in there – not cheap. Each room has a theme, ie one is Australiana, another one is comics, childrens, a room for music including cassette tapes, vinyl records, cds. The town and in fact the whole area reminds us a little bit of Margaret River only more hilly and no wineries. The landscape is very similar. It centres around Lake Daylesford which is a lovely lake where you can hire paddleboats, canoes and swim. There are natural springs dotted around where you can fill up your water bottle. The Hepburn Springs Regional Park borders the town and there are some lovely walks through forests. There is a great chocolate factory about 8kms away where they make the best truffles and centred chocolates. Their chocolate base comes direct from Belgium. It has been very chilly since we have been here, down to 9 degrees at night and only up to 19 in the day and very windy with a wind chill factor. Today has been beautiful about 22 and sunny. On Sunday we went out to dinner to a lovely cafe/restaurant in Hepburn Springs (about 3kms away) to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary – how time flies! Had the best pumpkin risotto ever, yum! Ended up in the botanical gardens (as we seem to do) and there was a spectacular begonia display behind glass. Apologise for all the begonia pics but we know Dennis and mom like them. On Wednesday it was a fantastic day, warm and sunny – hooray so we did some lovely walks through the Hepburn Springs Regional Park and tried mineral water straight from the springs –yuk it was awlful – smelt and tasted liked sulphur. Must be ok though cos the locals are there filling up their water bottles. Had a lovely lunch at the Chowder House in Hepburn Springs. The chowders had some great reviews on the internet so each had a seafood chowder for lunch – it was the best we have tasted, so much seafood. Can see why people drive from Melbourne just for a chowder. The nice thing about this area is that dogs are welcome at the cafes, provided you sit outside of course and they all have water bowls available for the dogs. Nice for us doggie owners. Just worked out we are 3564kms from home!
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