Fruitarians & goldmines

Well we have been back home for almost 2 weeks already, and I am still finding it a bit difficult to adjust to the lack of daylight and the amount of rain we have been having. Already, in the first 9 days of December, we have had more than the average rainfall for the whole month - just our luck! I must admit that it is nice to be back at work and back into our "normal" routine. Those damn Virgos and their structure hey?! On Monday we are off to the gemeente (local government authority) to register to get married :-) We did visit them last week with all our papers in hand, filled in some paperwork for the immigration people here, and made the appointment for Monday. As far as I can tell we will need to complete yet more paperwork on Monday (!!) and choose a date for the wedding. Will keep ya'll posted.

In the meantime, another report from our time in Australia :-) The weekend after returning to Melbourne from Bright was spent with Bron and Maurice in Hepburn Springs/Daylesford. We drove up there on the Saturday morning and immediately headed to the central reservation service to book some accommodation. We hadn't really thought it would be a problem to find anything, but soon discovered that everything apart from ultra luxurious cabins for $500.00 a night was fully booked. And I mean everything - including dodgy motels and all the caravan parks in the local area! Apparently it is "wedding season" and Saturday nights get booked out weeks in advance, go figure. After an initial moment of panic we got in touch with Continental House in Hepburn Springs and managed to book 2 rooms there.

Continental House (or the Conti as it is affectionately known), for those of you who have never been there, is a big old rambling wooden house from the 1920s that has seen better days but is still owned and operated as a kind of hippy paradise/hostel/retreat. We were soon to discover it is run on strict vegan principles, meaning we couldn't even put cow's milk in the fridge or drink alcohol on the premises, and Bron & Maurice had to go right off the property out to the car park to smoke a cigarette. After that initial shock wore off, we learned that the owner takes it even one step further and follows a fruitarian diet! None of us had ever heard of it and we just had to look it up on google to find out more - heehee. Apparently it is based on a totally non violent way of living and the philosophy is one of waiting to receive what Mother Earth is willing to give up, without forcibly taking it, even if that means waiting for fruit to drop from the tree. Damn it - no cooked food, no meat, no vegetables, no dairy and not even fruit that you have picked yourself for the hardcore fruitarians!!! Apparently the owner of the Conti is a tropical fruitarian and has plans to relocate to northern Queensland to be closer to the "source" ;-)) And word around town was that he is not the healthiest looking guy in the world. More power to him but it all sounds a bit far fetched to me.

Our time was spent doing as little as possible apart from drinking and eating. I think Bronwyn and Maurice were very happy just to get away from Melbourne for a couple of days, but Bron would be pretty happy anywhere with a magazine and a coffee! She will probably hate me for posting this photo of her here, but hey, that's what you get when you refuse to "pose" for photos Bron; and for me it is SO Bronwyn - glass of wine, cigarette, cell phone and her Prada handbag! After a yummy Thai dinner we managed to mix it up with the locals on Sunday night at The Palais, when we (in effect) gatecrashed a farewell Disco Inferno party for a guy heading back to Switzerland to live. There was even a live fire twirler - just like being at a hippy beach party on Koh Samui!

On the drive back to Melbourne on Monday we diverted through Ballarat to visit Sovereign Hill. I hadn't been there since I was, I think, about 8 years old so was pretty curious to see it again, and Jeroen & Maurice were both very excited at the prospect of visiting a goldmine for some reason. It was a great afternoon. We did the tours of both goldmines, Maurice had his photo taken at "Ye Olde Photo Shoppe", we panned for gold, sipped on old fashioned lemonade, and were told tales of the good old days by just about every "shopkeeper" we visited. Jeroen (aka Hoinjsz) even managed to get himself "taken into custody for being drunk and disorderly & disturbing the peace" (see photos above) ;-) Made me realise that it's not only NL who can do a good open air museum!

Alli xxx