Yesterday we drove to Hamilton to visit Aunty Dorothy - she is amazing, not only caring for two of her frail adult children but every day she has an elderly neighbour to dinner, she runs the local RSL ladies guild and is still involved with community activities. She's 88! She was quite offended that I thought she was 90! She came out to lunch beautifully dressed in lilac and kept the conversational ball rolling. What a lady - an example to all of the benefits of keeping busy, alert and remaining still excited by life! Her unit is immaculate and her cottage garden is filled with colour.
The countryside in the western districts is very dry, bare earth showing through the sparse grass and areas of ploughed paddocks, dotted with gums and sometimes bordered with old pine or cypress windbreaks. Cropping and hay making are important and stacks are immense: hay is mostly bailed rather then rolled. Farmers are burning stubble then ploughing before the hoped-for rains. It is flat country mostly, broken by rounded hills - remnants of volcanic action thousands of years ago. The Grampians loom over the plains providing walking, climbing and outdoor activities. This spectacular range is very popular.
Around Creswick, between Ballarat and Daylsford, potatoes are being harvested now and paddocks ploughed. Creswick is a charming town, once important in the Victorian goldfields, and now drawing tourists to it's gardens, mill and eateries. We ate at the American Hotel (1854) last night: an excellent menu, good wines and very full for a Tuesday night. Ros had calamari and I had pepper sausages on mash with caramalised onion and green pepper sauce - sublime!
Everywhere we are delighted by the historic, beautifully preserved public buildings and the many charming weatherboard cottages featuring iron lace and fretwork, painted and accented and frequently surrounded by picket fences, roses and lavenders. We have loved exploring the area.
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