daytripping

Heather and I went for a day trip to Daylesford today. Well, half a day anyway. Oh boy! It turned out to be a bigger adventure than we expected. Firstly, it had poured rain all night. I mean POURED. It was pelting against my window and I'm sure it was the noise that woke me up numerous times. The drive to Daylesford of about 40mins was interesting. We passed a lot more "lakes" than normal and it was a challenge to see through the windscreen even with the wipers on full speed. We had to slow down to cross some "rivers" that streamed over the road too but we did eventually make it safely there. We decided to go to the Farmer's Market because the Makers Market (the main focus of the trip) didn't open until 10am. Not much going on at the Farmers Market which was outdoors in the wind and rain. Talked to a few nice people including one lady who was holding down her stall while the wind tried to send it flying.

Let's be adventurous. Never seen this ... er... vegetable before. Kohlrabi is apparently a bit like sweet potato or turnip. It's sweet apparently anyway and can be eaten raw, bitter skin removed, or cooked numerous ways. The guy said it's big in Germany. So we bought one each. I'm yet to try mine. We didn't stay too long since it was a pretty small market due to the weather. Heather wanted to look in a cute little shop called Wombat Gifts but it seems most places open at 10am on Saturdays there. So we still had some time to kill. We went to this neat little cafe with a lovely open fire. It wasn't actually too cold today. Pretty warm considering the winter we've had. Just wet. But it was a cosy inviting place to have a cuppa.

After 10am we went to Wombat Gifts and had a good look around. Lots of nifty, interesting little bits and bobs to look at in there. Then we made our way to the Makers Market. Oo, this was delightful. And thankfully inside!

It is filled with stalls of handmade goods. Such lovely stuff. The fabric made me jealous and the ideas were making me giggle with glee. These hats were great and love the one that Heather is trying on here. It's a bit redder than the pic shows. She decided to buy it too. It looked really good on her. They had a green one like it which I liked but none of the hats were big enough. *sigh* The problem with having a big head.

There were lots of really nice stuff that I wasn't willing to pay the asking price for though including some cool button rings. I did end up buying a little button hairclip though. My main purchase, a great purchase, was from the guy up on the stage. You can just see him in some pics. His name is Geoffrey Williams and he really looked british. Think the British black guy from Oceans 11. He was making some groovey sound. Relaxing yet inspiring. Gave the market a great atmosphere. I bought his CD.

And that's where we thought the adventure had come to end. But we were so wrong! Just out of Daylesford cars were stopping on the windy road. Windy as in lots of curves though the wind was still blowing too. If you click on the first pic you can see the tree fallen across the road. We ended up getting out to go help. A bunch of people were pulling at branches till they broke and then tossing them over the side of the road down the valley. That was were the tree was previously rooted. It broke on the barrier at the side of the road too so we were able to all get on one side, lifting and pushing, and get it just over the barrier. It was fun and felt good to work with others I didn't know to accomplish something that helped us all.

Laugh we did and giggled with glee at how our day trip turned out so adventurous. Still more awaited us...

At Creswick the road was blocked again. This time with too much water to pass. See the guy wading almost waist deep toward that shop? And the guy that directed us to another route home said the water would come up to our windows in the river ahead. So we had to turn back and drive 10kms or so to take the other turn off toward home.

Along roads sometimes like this. But it was a thrill for us. And see my new CD? We grooved and laughed and chatted all the way home. What an adventure! I think I need more little adventures in life.