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The lunar schedule aligned with a weekend with no hockey so I booked us a weekend away in the country to attempt to do some astrophotography.

We went out for dinner at Fergusson Winery in the Yarra Valley on the way out. Good thing I made a reservation! Haha. I told Scott I reserved the whole restaurant for a truly romantic experience.

We had cured kingfish and beef carpaccio, Angus beef and confit duck. Everything was lovely except for the potato with the steak, very paste-y.

The Airbnb had a wood-fired hot tub. Like Kyla’s hot tub! They had it warm for us when we got there, so we stoked the fire and sat in it until we got too cold. We could see a bit of the milky way but by the time we got out of the hot tub it had clouded over.

The cabin was on a little farm overlooking a valley. Very scenic.

It was a cold weekend. We spent a lot of time on the deck with the heat lamp blasting, reading and knitting and crocheting. Very cozy.

I also spent the entire second day trying to heat the hot tub up again. It took FOREVER.

The lamb was only one day old!!!

Scott doing a dramatic horse rescue. The horse had hooked himself on to the fence and we knew the owner was going away that day! Scott used my advice of saying “easy” a lot (I learned that from Heartland), and managed to set him free. Good job Scott.

Trespassing (not really) to look at birds. My friend helped me identify a new to me bird: Grey Shrikethrush.

How is this comfortable for either participant?

Kind of a nice picture until you realise that they’re standing in a horse poo and their beaks are covered in poo from them digging around in it for snacks. Yum!

I don’t have any astro pics to show you. The second night was even cloudier than the first. A lot of things have to come together at the same time to be able to shoot the milky way. Especially when really don’t like staying up very late. I probably won’t have another chance until next winter, but I’ve resolved to plan a bit more ahead next year.

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We took Rosemarie down to The Prom for a camping weekend. It’s one of my favourite places in Victoria. I was excited for her to see wombats!

We saw this blonde one on the side of the road almost right away! I wonder if he is elderly? He looks like he’s been through some stuff. Rosemarie was surprised how big it was.

We did the Wildlife Walk at dusk the first night. We saw lots of kangaroos hopping around and a few wombats munching on plants. Got lots of great pics. We couldn’t find any emus though, even though a lady told us they saw tons right before we got there.

Tidal River and Bear Gully campgrounds were fully booked so we stayed at a private campground in Yanakie. It was nice, the sites were pretty spread out.

Tongue Point hike. That water!!!

Little photoshoot at Norman Beach. The weather was beautiful but none of us felt motivated enough to swim, haha.

Picnic lunch and a wade in Tidal River.

Of course we’re going to play some games! Kub and Sagrada. Waiting for sunset.

I complained all the way up Mt Oberon. I hate walking up hill!

Made it! It is a nice view. Legs dead.

Then we spent 2 hours playing Carcassonne in the car at Squeaky Beach waiting for full dark because I had heard that the aurora australis forecast was pretty good that night and we were in such a great location to look south. Unfortunately it was super cloudy. We waited as long as we thought we could, but we were all so exhausted from such a big day we gave up around 10:30pm and decided to head back to the campground (45 minutes drive).

After 30 minutes of driving I kept looking out the window because it looked like the clouds were clearing and I could see tons of stars. Scott said he would turn around and drive back if we wanted, and Rosemarie agreed, so we did a u-turn and drove 30 minutes back to Squeaky Beach. … And straight back into full cloud coverage. So frustrating. We saw SOOOO MANY wombats on the side of the road though… like 25. That kept us alert.

We still at least got out of the car and walked down to the beach to see if we could see anything at all, but nope, way too cloudy. So we gave up again and drove 45 minutes all the way back to the campground and passed out immediately out of pure exhaustion.

We only wanted to do flat walks the next day haha. Lilly Pilly! We got lucky and saw an echidna! I haven’t seen one since I’ve been back in Australia. My friend told me I should have lay down on the ground to get a better picture. Next time. Rosemarie asked why Australian animals are so ROUND.

And then we drove home via Gurneys Cider, which was great, as usual. I probably bought a few too many to take home considering I almost never drink any more.

Awesome weekend!!

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We crashed Scott’s cousins’ camping site in Walkerville for a night after Christmas. We weren’t there for long but had a lovely time hanging out with the cousins and their kids. We hiked up to the lookout, looked for crabs in rock pools, identified birds. I love that area.

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South Australia finally decided to open their border, JUST in time to squeeze in a quick visit to see Cassia before they moved to Spain. By chance we already had a few days booked off at the same time to go camping at Bear Gully, but we cancelled that booking and decided to roadtrip to Adelaide instead, via Little Desert National Desert, which is about half way between Melbourne and Adelaide.

One of the creepier giant things in Australia. Near Grampians National Park.

Tis indeed a dry place. SO MANY FLIES.

Thank goodness it also had a river flowing through it because it was FLIPPING HOT when we were there. The water felt amazing and also gave us a break from the flies. We spent many hours floating on our water hammocks (in our full body bathing suits), something that I have been craving for the last couple years.

Camp shrimp stir fry.

We went for three short hikes. We were hoping to see different birds due to the different landscape and area but spent most of the time swatting flies instead. Some of the hikes had information sheets available though with lots of fun facts, which I enjoyed.

We learned about the Malleefowl, an endangered bird that makes stupidly complex mound nests out of sticks and sand and then lets it decay and compost to get it to the exact right temperature to incubate the eggs. Didn’t see any, as expected.

We decided to stop in Dimboola for a post-hike ice cream. I noticed an error on their sign post…

This guy was waiting for us back at camp. What a ridiculous bird. How can a wild bird be so big??????

Scott spotted this guy from the car as well. I had to get a friend to help identify. It’s a red-rumped parrot, even though we can’t see the red rump at all. He also had a beige female friend as well, but I cropped her out of the pictures haha.

There were a few Eastern Rosellas flying around camp too, but they were hard to get a good picture.

The campground was very quiet the second day so the bouncy boys came a bit closer. Scott took those pictures before I woke up.

We left fairly early the last day to get a good start on the rest of the drive to Adelaide. We didn’t know how long the border check and required covid test would take.

Quick photo stop at the Pink Lake of course! So salty!! Crusty AF! So cool!

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Thank you to Scott for being a great photography assistant for all of these shots!

Six shots stacked.

I forgot about taking multiple pictures of the same thing for stacking until the very end, whoops.

Tried a bit of light painting. Plus a plane in the background.

(BUTT)

I would like to try again. I’ve booked some time off for the new moon in September, hopefully we’re not in any kind of lockdown then. We kinda need to go even further away, Melbourne was still so bright we couldn’t really take any pictures in the south direction.