Robe Summer Dispatch - Sunday, 12th December 2021

 

Another beauty from FB - I am sure that visitors to our place feel as though they are being frisked by our very friendly labs

We got ourselves in holiday mode last Sunday with a very yummy breakfast at Pancho, across the road from the Primary School. It is a tiny café with great service, a small menu & excellent food. I particularly enjoy their omelettes & Wes loves their bacon. We sat outside, which was OK as we were warmly dressed, unlike quite a few visitors to town who hadn't brought clothes for Daylesford's wintry mornings. Here are photos of Wes tucking in & me about to start!

That afternoon Wes took the boys to Creswick Boarding Kennels for their fortnight stay. Meanwhile I washed all their bedding, vacuumed everywhere & cleaned all their bowls in preparation for their return on 20th December. 

We spent Monday visiting Leanne to celebrate her birthday a few days early with her. She was delighted & we had fish & chips for lunch - a rare treat for someone who lives on their own. Wes helped her get her Christmas decorations up, while I did back-ups on her computer & reinstalled her printer which had gone offline.

On Tuesday, Wes cleaned the main & small deckings & applied two coats of the steel grey colour we think looks so good with our house. It was a big job & the weather wasn't helpful early, but the sun did come out & dry everywhere in time for him to get the second coat done. This is one of those jobs that is very hard to do when Labradors are trying to assist. 

We had a busy morning the next day before setting off - packed, cleaned up, put everything back on the decking, picked up prescriptions. filled up with petrol & had a COVID-19 test. This last activity was done very well - there is a category for Travelling Interstate, which means fewer questions, as neither of us had any symptoms other than my usual asthmatic cough. 21 hours later we had our texts telling us the results were negative.

Our drive to Port Campbell was very different from what we expected. There were roadworks everywhere in Ballarat and we follow the directions of our navigational guide. She eventually decided we must have wanted to travel on back roads & so we did, stopping for tuna & lettuce sandwiches & hot drinks at the Blue Yabby Café in Lismore. 

Our accommodation was OK - roomy everywhere except the bedroom, where the sliding door of the robes opened onto an ironing board, which promptly fell out. It was very French, with minimum space between the robes & the bed. We decided not to unpack & lived out of our suitcases on the floor instead, which I hate. The shower was hot & had good pressure, which made up for the dreadful bed with squeaky sheets.

We had a lovely walk around the town, ending up at the famous Port Campbell pier with its crane & long history of shipwrecks & rescues. All the while we were keeping an ear on the cricket - an amazing first day of the Brisbane Ashes Test with the Poms all out for 147.

That night we had dinner at 12 Rocks Beach Bar & Café, oysters followed by seafood pasta. The service was excellent & we tried a local
Timboon whisky & gin before enjoying prosecco with our meals. 

Our wonderful waitress, Lily, is in the background with our proseccos

On Thursday, we decided to go for a long drive on The Great Ocean Road. We had breakfast beforehand at Grassroots Café, which has rhubarb, nasturtiums & artichokes growing in its front garden.

We loved seeing The Twelve Apostles, as well as Loch Ard Gorge, and benefitted from small crowds everywhere as we are travelling before most people go on Christmas holidays. Unfortunately, I suffered from car sickness after a few too many kms of windy roads, so we headed back (again on back roads as there were more roadworks) to Timboon, to visit the Timboon Railway Shed Distillery. This was a wonderful experience - COVID protocols firmly in place & a smiling, friendly young man to greet us. We started with hot drinks and Wes moved onto their single malt Christie's Cut whisky, which he loved!

We decided to have a quiet day on Friday after a lovely walk along the cliff's edge and breakfast back at Grassroots Café. We took advantage of the free time to catch up with emails & were shocked to open one from Sue Flight, partner of Dee Bonavia, letting us know that Dee had died back in October. We met Dee when we were Insurance Brokers and loved our time spent with her. I'm sure everyone who worked at Maloney Insurance Brokers felt the same & will be sad to read this. Dee had cancer, which settled down for a couple of years, but then came back with a vengeance. RIP Dee.

Yesterday we listened to the Test as we drove from Port Campbell to Robe, where we will be until Wednesday. When we reached the South Australian Border, we were met by a delightful young policewoman, who checked all our credentials, streamlined the COVID protocols & directed us to Mt Gambier Showgrounds to get tested again. We drove in there about 15 minutes later to find no queues at all. This was our first experience of drive through testing & it went very smoothly. We are still waiting for results, but don't have to quarantine while we wait. 

Last night we ate an early dinner at Sails, which is the best place for seafood in Robe. Wes had a flounder with broccolini, and I enjoyed Ocean trout fish cakes with a Thai salad. We drank a bottle of Mr Rigg's Montepulciano. This is a lighter styled red wine, very Italian & perfect with our seafood. 

This morning we got up at 6am for a walk around the Marina & jetties. We are staying on the Marina itself, which is a beautiful position, although we don't have a view of the water from our room. We'll be off to breakfast soon & are planning a relaxing day.