Living Legends

Living Legends is located within Woodlands Historic Park, a place for retired champion racehorses to rest on their laurels and enjoy visits from their adoring public!

We've often driven past but decided to visit on Nissa's last morning with us, en route to the airport (just six minutes away).  It was very pleasant, wandering about in the sunshine for about an hour.  We are not racing followers but very much enjoyed meeting so many beautiful horses (and smooching with some too)!

To Tooborac!

The countryside changes markedly as we drive around our local(ish) area.  The variations found within short distances is really very interesting - and continues to amaze us.

Although we have visited Lancefield quite a few times recently, we hadn't ventured any further North - so were delighted by the huge boulders!

Geocaching led us along some lesser-used back roads, where we admired the creativity (and engineering) of some locals, who built their private Stonhenge-like structure!  Wow!  Of course, the boulders in their natural state were equally impressive.  We had a good look at some that were just beside the road.  Elmer looked  small in comparison!

We made a quick stop at the former Emu Flat Public School, which still had wooden shingles visible beneath the corrugated iron roof of the entry area!

I've done some quick research this morning and the school was built in 1875, then moved by 22 horses to it's current site in 1902.  It operated from then until 1943. 



You can read more of the school's history (and that of the neighbouring Uniting Church) here, from page 4 onwards.

BBQ at Hanging Rock!

Nick and I made a brief visit to Hanging Rock back in April.

It was a cold, wet day and Nick was working that afternoon, so we vetoed walking in favour of sitting in the café for a little while - enjoying their fire - before heading home again.

It is rare for us to go out without provisions for (at least) tea/coffee making and in spite of the café fire, we were sorry to have left our beverage case and thermos behind that day!

Another (longer) visit had been on the agenda, so we scheduled it for after our gravitational anomaly experiment.  En route, we picked up fresh bread from the Woodend Bakery and collected some gold coins for the BBQ.

Soon after arrival, Erin and Nissa cooked our Diamond Creek sausages, purchased on the way home from Maroondah Reservoir the previous day. We had yumions, too!  We enjoyed a lovely lunch and as we were eating many crimson rosellas visited. One very cheeky fellow sat at the end of the table to eye off our fruit!  There were kookaburras also, who appreciated a few sausage tidbits.

(Since our visits to Maroondah and Hanging Rock, I've purchased some wild bird seed and packed two small containers to carry in the cars). 

After lunch, we spent some time looking at the static displays in the Discovery Centre and then headed off for the Summit Walk. 

To say it was steep is an understatement. We could have used the help of a gravitational anomaly for sure!

We made it though - just - and the views were wonderful, even on a cold, cloudy day.  No doubt there will be other BBQs, though I'm not sure how often we will exert ourselves for the full bushwalk afterwards!  

Gravitational Stupid Thing!

You don't need to spend a lot of money to have fun!

I've been hanging out to visit Straws Lane, near Woodend since one of the mothers mentioned it at a school excursion.

Cars rolling uphill?! We had to try that!


There is a reference to the spot (near Hanging Rock) in this article - as well as similar places around the world.  Very interesting!

We decided to save the experiment till Nissa's visit.  It is fair to say she was quite sceptical when I mentioned the outing!  I did some YouTube research and with Nick's assistance, we entered the co-ordinates into the GPS, then set off.

What a hoot!  Elmer Fudd, all two-tonne of him, very definitely rolled uphill - three times!

Hot water on tap!

Maroondah Reservoir was recommended to me as a place where there were lots of wild birds, used to being hand-fed. 

We called in for a picnic with Nissa, after visiting the nearby Healesville Sanctuary (courtesy of our Zoos Victoria memberships).

Not long after arrival, Vaughan was very happily sitting with a small group of crimson rosellas.  He seemed oblivious to the cold but the rest of us were definitely aware of the icy wind - and very appreciative of our hot beverages! We are well-equipped for picnicking and didn't really need to avail ourselves of the free hot water on site but we did, cos it was novel!

It was a pretty spot and definitely warrants further exploration - on a warmer day!

Duck, duck, goose!

We are still settling into Hamby Home(in)stead, doing local-ish day-trips due to time constraints of feeding our calf, Tea. 

As much as we particularly enjoy more bushland environments, this lovely little spot fairly close to home deserves a mention. 

We've visited several times and were greeted noisily by the resident ducks and geese on each occasion.  Their antics cause much amusement and spending time with them while enjoying some morning or afternoon tea is a pleasant interlude.  It was one of the first places we took Nissa when she visited!

I wondered who Walter J Smith was.  It seems he founded the local fire brigade in 1904.

Gluten-free Date Cake (thermal cooked)

It's another (not) fine day for thermal cooking experiments.  We have guests arriving later in the day and as they are a gluten-free family, I'm trying some more experimentation.

I've previously adapted a few of my favourite recipes by substituting Aldi's gluten-free flour, so am doing that today with this recipe.  I've actually made a few substitutions.  We don't have walnuts and I'm saving the last of the macadamia nuts for something else.  I only have self-raising gluten-free flour, so used two cups of that rather than one of SR and one of plain.  We have run out of butter and olive oil spread, so I used a tablespoon of olive oil.  What else?!  I added two teaspoons of ginger.

The mixture was less dense than yesterday's carrot cake, so I used one of my weights to ensure the cake tin was touching the trivet inside the large pot. Once I transferred the large inner pot to the insulated outer pot, I swapped the 500g weight for the smaller weights - so I could close the lid(s) properly!

Update:  According to the recipe, the cake should have been done after two hours of thermal cooking. 

Sadly, it wasn't ready then, nor after an extra half an hour but we sampled it anyway - tasting the cooked parts.  The flavour was lovely but the gluten-free texture detracted from our overall enjoyment.  I think another attempt with normal flour is definitely warranted - stay tuned!