Tuesday, 2 April 2019

TRAVEL TUESDAY #177 - YARRA VALLEY, AUSTRALIA

“If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.” ― S.E. Hinton 

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us. Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.

Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.
Last week we had friends visiting us from interstate and while they were here we drove out to the northeast of Melbourne to the Yarra Valley. It is about 60 km from the City centre and is situated amongst low hills. The Yarra River flows through the valley to make its way to the City centre. Several picturesque small towns are found in this valley, amongst many vineyards and prime sheep and cattle country. Lilydale, Yea, Yarra Glen and Healesville are all thriving communities and prime tourist attractions.

Numerous wineries have made themselves famous in this location, some very old ones as well as many new. We drove to Yarra Glen, a small town full of charm on the banks of the Yarra and made our way to Domaine Chandon, a winery owned by the motherhouse of Môet et Chandon in France. This establishment produces sparkling wine that is as good as (or better, I say!) than the champagne produced by Môet in France. They have a restaurant and wine tasting room onsite where one may enjoy the local wine and food while viewing the vineyards outside and towards the horizon the lovely blue hills. Autumn colours dotted the landscape, and fortunately we had a glorious, fine, warm and mellow day.

We then proceeded to Yering Station Winery, one of my favourite wineries there and enjoyed the hospitality of their restaurant. Having had lunch washed down by some excellent Australian wine, we proceeded to Healesville, whose claim to fame is an Australian animal wildlife sanctuary. This is another tourist destination where one may see Australian animals in their natural habitat: Kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, echidnas, possums, platypuses, emus, cassowaries, pelicans, brolgas, eagles, ibises, cockatoos, rosellas, galahs, kookaburras and many more.

We enjoyed a cup of excellent coffee in an old-fashioned bakery and sampled some of the traditional sweets: Caramel slices, chocolate mousse slices, chocolate hedgehogs, coconut slices, apple and blueberry pies and chocolate éclairs. The day was concluded by a visit to a few shops selling old wares and antiques, and the drive back was pleasant with lots of music and laughter. Needless to say that the day was enjoyed very much by everyone…

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter