Yarra Valley and Melbourne

Saturday, 15 September 2018

View of Yarra Valley from Yering Station Winery

Interesting roadside sculpture - we hope that's what it is!

When we left Beechworth on Wednesday morning, we decided to take the scenic route through the Yarra Valley instead of the more “industrial” route along the Hume Highway.  We travelled through some beautiful country roads in the foothills of the Alps, almost as far as Mansfield before turning south to Merton and Yarra Glen.  The roads were quite twisty and hilly, the surface was good and there was a reasonable amount of traffic – the trucks were mainly gravel or delivery trucks.  By the time we near Yarra Glen, the mountain scrub had changed to farm land, with beautiful black cattle, and then to vineyards.  As it was noon and we were still over an hour away from our destination at Frankston, we decided to stop at a roadhouse for lunch.  Unfortunately, we didn’t come across any roadhouses, but the wineries, with cellar doors and restaurants, we rather abundant.  Not knowing the region, we decided to take the next one on the left (Yering Station - it did look very nice), which also advertised a café serving light lunches.  The café only opened at weekends, so we choose the winery’s restaurant instead.  There was no menu/prices on display and the helicopter (with diners aboard) which landed and parked beside our vehicle/caravan should have been a bit of a warning, the setting was absolutely gorgeous, the food items were very artistically arranged and my glass of bubbly (Himself was very good and didn’t get grumpy when it was pointed out that it was his turn to drive through the traffic) was very palatable.  Needless to say, the service was impeccable.  It is nice to have a treat at times!  Following lunch, it was very easy driving through Ringwood to the Eastlink which took us to Frankston.

We are staying at the Big4 Mornington Peninsula (which is at South Frankston); we have stayed here previously and although a lot of money has been spent on facilities in the park, it is obvious there was none left over to purchase a lawn mower.  If the grass was mowed, another star could be added to the rating!  

Thursday was a “warranty” day at Chadstone Shopping Centre, along with a bit of retail therapy.  His new electric shaver, purchased a couple of days before we left Cairns, decided to stop working a few days ago (this necessitated the use of Lady Gillette razors and body wash).  A visit to Myer for a refund and then to the Shaver Shop for a different brand.

It is also without any regret whatsoever that I must announce that Maggie TomTom is no longer a member of the family.  Maggie’s personality was very challenging, with her refusing to undertake any of the functions that she had promised to fulfil and being very difficult to handle.  Maggie was taken to JB HiFi for some professional development and retraining – the very nice sales lady thought it was us that would need the retraining!!! – but after about an hour, finally gave up and agreed that we did know what we were talking about.  Maggie refused to co-operate with the “professional” so was relegated to the shelf for the sales rep to collect and Charlie TomTom was welcomed to the family.  Charles is a different model, much easier to manipulate and actually does what he is supposed to!  How easy it is now to plan a route on the iPad/iPhone and then sync it with Charlie.

Thursday evening we enjoyed dinner with cousin Sue and her husband, Gary.  Friday was our proper retail therapy day, mainly spent at the DFO at Moorabbin – a good chance for some early Christmas and birthday shopping.  We did manage to find a couple of personal items as well and would have stayed in the Skechers shop longer if it hadn’t been for the excessively loud music.

Today has been a bit of a catch-up day, with laundry and supermarket shopping – we did find a nice little massage place in the shopping centre and now have happy feet.  This afternoon we enjoyed a visit to the Tyabb Packing House Antique Centre and spent quite some time browsing through this very large establishment.