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First posted on January 8, 2013

I was too tired to do anything more than a quick drive through Chiltern on arrival the previous evening, so I started the day with a closer look. Was this sleepy little town ever a hive of activity! I had to give way to other cars three times in 15 minutes! Everyone was out, going about their Monday morning business. This is another beautifully preserved (by accident or design, who knows) old township.

It was home to Henry Handel Richardson.

One time home of Henry Handel Richardson

The lake opposite the HHR home

Lakeside sculptures

Also, Chiltern is the birthplace of John “Black Jack” McEwen, briefly Prime Minister of Australia following the disappearance of Harold Holt. From the town tour guide pamphlet, the home of his birth is, as far as I could make out, a ramshackle place going downhill, with lots of clutter and junk about. I couldn’t see any signs so I hope I’m wrong. Although it was a lovely house and would be sad to see it fall into total disrepair even if that’s not the historic home I guessed it to be.

I filled up at a kerbside pump then paid inside the produce and tack shop. The woman thanked me for not making her chase me down the street! How many fill up and drive off without paying, I wonder? Apart from being too honest, I was already too hot to move that quickly!

On the road again, really heading for home this time. My planned breakfast stop was at the Milawa cheese shop. When I got there, certainly, a beautifully shaded, vine-covered patio, but the food was no different to so many other cafes and nothing I wanted to eat for breakfast. Mistake! Back into the township proper, I went into a cafe where some people were sitting outside. It was one of those situations where as soon as you opened the door you knew you didn’t want to be there but couldn’t back out. Or perhaps I just lacked the gumption to do so. Thus, breakfast was a weak coffee (to my liking but I doubt to that of any coffee aficionado) and a not fresh, not stale muffin. Hastily consumed and hastily on the road again.
There was no freeway exit to the Milawa region where I’d been expecting one so I was driving by instinct to get back to the Hume. That took me to the outskirts of Wangaratta and out again at a different angle, without seeing the city centre. Whatever part of town it was, there were some substantial homes there. Another accidental sighting!

No more mistakes now. A stop at Seymour for lunch (yet another, though very nice, fresh salad sandwich) …

Seymour

… then drive, drive, drive to … my place!

There's no place like .....  :-)

Chiltern

First posted on January 8, 2013

Not quite such a leisurely start on Sunday morning. Alison had work to do on her PhD thesis and I had to start heading for home. But first, brunch in Kingston followed by a visit to the Canberra glassworks, housed in a former powerhouse. The glassworks is by a Sunday market and I thought I spotted it. No, the market is still on its Christmas/New Year break. That crowd was the Epiphany procession from the nearby Orthodox church!

Old Canberra powerhouse, now home to glassworks

As if it wasn’t hot enough already! (At times on this trip you could feel the car tyres sticking to the tarmac!!) It was fascinating, watching a blob turn into a delicate bowl, so we kept on watching, getting more sweat-drenched by the minute. I was anyway! It’s one of those painstaking crafts that I wouldn’t have the patience to do but love the end result.

You can do classes there and make simple things without blowing. I wouldn’t mind trying to make a paperweight! No need to explain the whatever weird shape it turned out. It would be ‘right’ …. artistic even. Ha ha!

Having bade good-bye to Joseph the previous evening, now it was time to say good-bye to Alison when I dropped her back home. Until next time, of course! I prefer to fill the tank at the start of a day’s driving so pulled into the queue at Yass services. And what a queue! After sitting for a while I decided to rearrange the bits and pieces in the car. Then I sat for a while longer. Finally, I pulled out of the queue and joined the Hume. Goodness knows where all the vehicles had come from, with all their various towed jet-skis, surf-boards, cars!, and goodness knows what hidden under tarps. There was no queue at all at Jugiong. Probably not as many people as I did paid 159.9/litre! It was only 130.9/litre at Holbrook, where I stopped for a late afternoon tea. Early afternoon tea had been at Gundagai – the town, not by the Dog on the Tuckerbox!

I hadn’t intended pulling into Jugiong – memories of doing that with my dear, much missed (deceased last year) friend Brenda a few years ago, laughing at the funny name of the place. But it was the first petrol point after Yass. On the way out of that tiny hamlet I stopped at the lookout point – beautiful countryside.

Views over Jugiong

Apart from the breaks at Gundagai and Holbrook, it was straight through to Chiltern, a hot day’s driving, thankful I wasn’t driving straight home. Tea at a local pub – I think the first ‘home made’ quiche I’ve had that has been home made! Delicious, with lovely flaky pastry. Followed by an early night, or so I thought!

For the past few days there had been a lot of little insects about, liberally sprinkled on the car whenever I stopped. I arrived in Canberra with a streaming nose, a ‘mind over matter’ result from thinking an insect went up my nose the previous night in Cowra. No – whatever it was, it was ‘just a tickle’. 
I experienced the real thing in Chiltern – an insect in my ear! I could hear and feel it flapping about. Jumping under the shower at 1.15am to flush it out wasn’t the sort of sleep I’d been hoping for! Nor when you could feel the insects on your skin. After the ear episode I pulled the sheet over me almost like a shroud.

In the morning outside the motel room door ….