Daylesford is a lovely town

 

Tuesday 30^th March, 2021.

Took a drive up to Wombat Hill Botanic Garden, planted in the 1880s on top of an extinct volcano. Glad we didn’t decide to walk up, it’s quite a hill! At the entry, there’s a sign pointing to a ‘scenic drive’. Sounds good. We get almost all the way around and a man in hi-vis comes running towards us. He seems very frustrated! He tells us that the road is closed due to a fallen tree, which they are trying to cut up and remove, but someone keeps moving the road closed sign, and can we please reverse back until there’s room to turn around. Really!!?? Ok, start reversing! Sadly, another car drives up behind us and this driver is really shit at reversing and takes forever to get anywhere! Oh and of course, another car drives up behind us! We’re never getting out of here!! Like my dad always said “if you can’t reverse it, you shouldn’t be driving it”!!!

Pioneer Memorial Tower

View from the top of Tower

Wombat sculptures

Begonia 'house'

Chef Alla Wolf-Tasker runs the café there, Wombat Hill House, and that’s where we have lunch, because by now, it’s lunchtime! It’s busy already, just on midday, good sign. We didn’t have to wait long for our food to arrive, which was a big surprise. The kitchen must be a well oiled machine. The coffees could have been hotter though.

Robert, our host, was cleaning the other cottage and I wanted to ask him if we could pick some of his lemons. We chat to him a bit about his garden, it’s the end of the season and looks pretty rough, and I’d love to have a dig around in it! I miss my garden. He tells us the European wasps are a problem in this area too. He had a nest on the property a couple of years ago that he dealt with and hasn’t had any more since, but we see them around in other parts of the town.

We drove up and down the main street and also walked up and down to try and get oriented and check out the shops, and realise how close everything is to where we are staying. The Tourist Info have quite a few self drive loops through surrounding towns, but we’re a bit over driving. There’s a leaflet advertising ‘The Amazing Mill Markets”, sounds interesting. It’s huge!! Trevor goes to the loo and then gets lost trying to find his way back! This is where we find some small Fowlers jars, size 10s!! Very special.

Dinner tonight is at the Royal Daylesford Hotel, with 14 different parmas! Wow!! Impressive. And a short walk from our cottage.