After the busy tourism-filled days of Sydney and then the ~22 mostly-awake hours in Melbourne it was time for some downtime – we were on a train to the countryside on Sunday afternoon to spend a few days with Erin’s dad and stepmother. This section of the trip condenses quite well into a single post as it really was some well-needed relax time.

We were met off the train in Bendigo by Dave and Colleen (I’ll leave it up to you to deduce which one is Erin’s dad!). I spotted some amusing signage on the way out; witch poo, oh that Aussie humour!

After the 2-hour train ride it was another hour’s drive to home (St Arnaud) – this really was the countryside we were going to! – but first up was dinner. Erin had some kind of tasty-looking chicken leg, I had the mandatory traditional Chicken Parma. Delicious.

Pretty good start!

I’m not going to itemise the 2.5 days we spent out in St Arnaud, here’s a random not-necessarily-ordered collection of things instead.

My father-in-law is a terrible influence; he forced me to sample some excellent port. We weren’t sure about some of it so had to test them more than once.

They’ve pretty much finished the self-designed house, apart from a few bits and pieces inside. When we were last here over two years ago it was mostly a shell inside so quite a big and noticeable change!

We’re putting a lot of thought into a bunch of restructuring we want done with our house next year. Dave is a draftsman and was good enough to spend quite a few hours with us figuring out exactly what we wanted and then drawing the plans for us. Awesome! Seeing the plans on paper make the whole thing seem a bit more real and achievable, too, rather than only existing in our heads.

Dave caught a frog. I didn’t mention that frogs are loud, did I? No? Well, frogs are loud. Some variety of tree frog, I believe, and it spent every night until quite late making a hell of a lot of noise outside near the pond. I hope it managed to attract a mate/scare off intruders/get into the opera or whatever it was doing, seems like a lot of effort otherwise.

I went for a couple of morning runs. They were unexciting. I can confirm that St Arnaud does have hills, however.

We went for a couple of walks around town. Saw an old tractor thing but the real highlight was the bible museum; only one in the southern hemisphere apparently! We didn’t go in, it might have been too much for us to cope.

We definitely ate food, most of it un-pictured because I’m bad at remembering. Here are some delicious sausage rolls and a quiche, though.

We went for a walk around a lake. Originally we’d intended to go kayaking but Erin chickened out; something to do with 20C being too cold, hmmm. There were pelicans! A man warned us about snakes but none were spotted. I more than once wished I had a “traditional” Australian cork hat; there was a very persistent fly.

I have honestly no idea what this is a picture of. Wildlife of some kind, I assume, but beats me.

Departed on Wednesday afternoon after a delicious last country meal. Here’s a family snap:

Then it was back on the train into Melbourne ready for the next segment of our holiday!