Road trip!

What better to do on a nice spring day than to pile into the car and go traipsing all over the state. First stop Healesville for a coffee and toilet break.

Once our batteries
where recharged it was back into the car to Marysville. That was just a two second pit stop to decided whether to eat lunch now or later. It was decided later, so straight on to Lake Mountain it was. Lunch was at the Bistro at the Lake Mountain Resort. Admittedly it's nothing flash there, but the place is clean and the food servings are REALLY generous. The kids and adults alike had a ball at Lake Mountain. There was very little snow, but more than enough for some serious snowball fighting.


After all the kids where changed into dry clothes we headed back to Marysville to visit the Old Style Lolly shop. Rain, hail, shine or fire - nothing will stop the visit to the Lolly shop - even if it's now located in an old shipping container. This lolly shop really opens your eyes up to the randomness of bushfires. Let me show you what I mean.

Here are the pics of the Lolly shop before and after Black Saturday.

The whole shop (well it was a house actually) and all the houses/shops next to it practically burnt to the ground - the the wooden fence and tree stayed intact. You really have to shake your head and wonder at Mother Nature sometimes.

Anyway I digress, from Marysville we headed up to Steavenson Falls. Again another mind blowing example of what happens during a bushfire.
Before:

The picture on the left is the walking track leading up to the falls and the picture on the left is of the hydroelectric station at the bottom of the falls (unfortunately this is the best pic of the hydroelectric station I could find).

Here's the pictures I took today:

So the picture on the left is looking up the walking track and the one on the right is looking back down to where the hydroelectric station was (which is right where the water ends in the photo). I'm still shaking my head just looking at the pictures.

So after our walk we decided to drive home the long way, going through Kinglake (and boy was that sobering seeing how many people are still living in temporary accommodation), Hurstbridge (which I had no idea was alternative/hippie heaven until we stopped there for the kids to have a run on a playground) and Diamond Creek finally stopping at Smorgy's in Bundoora for dinner (which I have to say I don't recommed).

All in all the day was long (we left at 9am and got home at 8pm) but the kids had a ball.