Furry friends and wine

We were slightly delayed leaving Adelaide because we lost a passenger between check-in and boarding. But they found his luggage in no time to offload, and we still arrived in Melbourne ten minutes early. And my scooter met me at the door of the aircraft instead in Baggage Reclaim. I was very impressed.  

Finding the car proved trickier than finding the missing passenger’s luggage. We did a tour of the car park. “It’s that way,” Lindsey kept saying. She was right eventually.

It was great to see her and Katherine and Helen, as well as their furry family members, dogs Teddy and his new little sister, 11 week old Amber. She was at biting stage and took a liking to my toes. Lindsey found me a pair of slippers to protect them.

Nearby was Yarra Bend Park, a wide grassy and wooded area that was ideal for walking dogs. As we walked through it, there was a view of Melbourne city skyline. “I hadn’t realised you were so close to the city,” I said to Lindsey. “It’s six kilometres,” she replied. “It’s about fifteen minutes.”

There was another dog not far away. A big wooden one, 5½ metres tall and 8 metres long. It stood next to Fairfield Railway Station. Helen said that it used to light up and wag its tail. But it hasn’t done that since 2006 when it stopped working.

Another day Lindsey and I drove to the Yarra Valley and had lunch at a winery, with wine of course. Driving restricted our consumption but there was no other way of getting there. We solved that by buying some to drink later.

The area was beautiful with gentle hillsides and deciduous trees with leaves of gold, red and orange. The architecture was wooden and from the early European settlers. The buildings nestled among the trees. There were picket fences and 18^th century style street lamps. After lunch we walked along the main street and into some of the shops. Then it started to rain. So we returned to the car. As we drove away the sun came out and the trees sparkled with colour.