week forty eight | meredith music festival, meredith, victoria

Feeling underprepared is never nice, but what is probably even worst is expecting (and preparing for) the very worst case and trying to get ready (and have a good time) from there. In the past I’ve only ever been to much bigger music festivals; festivals where 50,000 drunken punters threw cups full of bodily fluid at each other in mosh pits that you couldn’t escape from even if you wanted to. I have to say, by comparison, my experience of Meredith was completely idyllic.

Just like everybody told me, Meredith is much smaller. It feels more like a village with a town square then a messy, multistage, sponsored music event. There is only one big stage, and festival-goers drag couches down from their campsites to claim viewing spots for the weekend. There is the Meredith eye, a ferris wheel that’s free to go on so long as you’re willing to wait.  AND, most importantly, I didn’t feel like I was being crushed to death by other humans all weekend.

Campgrounds form a ring around the central hub and we were lucky enough to camp with a great group of people, full of fun, lazing around in the sunshine and enjoying the music.

Meredith Music Festival runs over three days and two nights at the start of each December and was full of good vibes, great people, beers, sunrises, dancing, sparkles, and new friends. It was a brilliant weekend and not a signal cup of pee in sight! Win!

TRIP RATING: 4/5 dinosaur friends

week forty seven | hanging rock, victoria

I love summer. My friends and I, being a mixture of students and teachers, also get random mid week days off together so we decided to celebrate but having a “picnic at Hanging Rock”.

For anyone that doesn’t understand that that phrase is actually a name of a movie let me explain. In 1975 a movie came out (with the same name) about a group of schoolgirls who went for a picnic on Valentines Day 1901 and some of the girls disappeared. Like, really just vanished behind a rock and never came back. 

The movie is massively creepy and it’s all pretty vague about whether the story is real or not.  In light of all that Jess, Clare and I set off ready to see the rock, eat some cheese and hopefully come back in order to tell you all about it.

It was a beautiful day; blue skies and quiet - we walked, took pictures, ate the aforementioned cheese and didn’t go missing. WIN.

This particular trip also came at a pretty tricky point for me so I’m so grateful for brilliant friends and Monday adventures.

Hanging Rock is just gorgeous and there are a number of beautiful rocks you can climb all over; there is also a gentler walk up to the Rock so it would be good for anyone regardless of age or ability level.

I would highly recommend Hanging Rock for picnics and day trips and would also highly recommend both Clare and Jess because they are lovely people to hang out with (especially at a “hanging” rock and also more generally).

TRIP RATING: 5/5 mysterious disappearances.

week forty six | emerald, victoria

Recently Max and I celebrated one year of Mario Kart games and noodle soup meals so we decided to go on an adventure. If I was in any doubt he is the guy for me, Max then brought it upon himself to book a treehouse. I HOUSE. IN. A. TREE. IN A TREE. GUYS.

Anyway this beacon of joy was in Emerald, just 45 mins or so from Melbourne in the Dandenong ranges. I feel like my blog gives quite a bit of love to the Dandenong ranges, but that is entirely justified because it really is a lovely part of the world - a complete escape from Melbourne whilst still being very close.  Emerald, I discovered, seems to be the major hub of the area because it’s actually much bigger than I had anticipated.

Once we got ourselves settled and i calmed down (it’s a house in a tree!), we headed into town for fish and chips and some sunshine. We also found a little park right near the Emerald puffing Billy train station which meant we could eat and see it pass by without needing to pay $45 for the privilege of actually riding it.

Post-fish and chips our afternoon consisted of getting together all the necessary cheese and dip requirements for the evening and heading back before the rain started. We ate much cheese and I absolutely annihilated Max in monopoly which i suppose means he’s a much better hippy then I am.

Oh, I forgot to mention! The treehouse where we stayed is actually part of what used to be the biggest nursery in the region, providing tree seedlings for all Avenues of Honour in Melbourne and beyond during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It fell into disrepair but the property is now being lovingly brought back to life by a couple who spend lots of time in the garden uncovering the old architectural elements of the nursery. From the treehouse itself you get three full walls of glass looking out into the overgrown garden.

The rain had stopped by the next morning and so we headed out for a walk through the garden/jungle/overgrown tree area. The paths we were following were original nursery ones being slowly re-hashed out by the owners. We followed the path and found ourselves near the lake that forms one side of the Emerald Country Club, a beautiful golf course despite being well past it’s heyday. It reminded me a lot of the holiday club in dirty dancing minus all the practice lifts in the pond (if you know what I mean.)

Coffee was in order shortly after our walk so we took the recommendations of our lovely hosts and visited a new cafe in Gembrook to fill up and to insure I had enough pollen in my eyes and nose to get my hayfever raging for the rest of the weekend.

Much romance.           Many tree.                               Wow.

6/5 tree houses  

week forty five | merri creek and fairfield boathouse, melbourne

It looks like spring has officially hit Melbourne (sort of). As this past weekend was a pretty big weekend, I took some much needed relax time on Sunday afternoon and went on a bit of a sunshine bike adventure with lovely Max.

Living north side has a lot of advantages - Max’s house is really close to lots of bike trails along Merri Creek – a beautiful little creek that runs down into the Yarra. These bike paths are a lovely oasis within the city and with the dappled sunlight, it looks just like the kind of place fairies would hang out. (Okay, I loved all those books as a kid!)

We had a lovely ride, a bit of an explore, a drool over the houses backing on to the river and eventually made in to the Fairfield Park Boathouse for some refreshments and to feed the ducks.

Fairfield Park Boathouse is cute and quaint, a little too – LOOK HOW HISTORIC WE ARE. WE’LL CALL EVERYTHING OLD! – for me, but on a lovely spring day it is a very pleasant place where you can sit on the grass, watching the ducks swim by and people trying to navigate rowboats Mr. Darcy style.

I love Melbourne and I love spring, so all in all it was a pretty rad day.

5/5 sunny bike rides