Monday, 25 March 2019

Daylesford


Well, what a difference a night makes! After a stormy night, the temperature has gone from 320C yesterday to 120C today and it feels freezing especially as it’s windy and raining. We’re driving to Daylesford today via Ararat and Ballarat, the roads are sprinkled with small branches, leaves and puddles.
Ararat is a convenient place for coffee, and it turns out a convenient place for a quick fringe trim for me. Mission accomplished, we continue to Ballarat, stopping at Lake Wendouree. Our walk around the lake boardwalk is so short it’s non-existent because it’s so cold and wet. The old lake pavilion is now a restaurant called Pipers by the Lake which has been beautifully restored and is serving very good pumpkin and sweet potato soup which is very welcome. The Ballarat Botanical gardens opposite are beautiful especially the indoor begonia house. Not only are the flowers amazing, it’s dry and warm too!

Begonias in Ballarat Botanical Gardens
We’re staying at the Royal Daylesford Hotel tonight. It’s a well restored old hotel and our room has a door onto an upper veranda overlooking the main crossroads in Daylesford. The town of Daylesford is equally old and now restored, the main street has a lovely selection of old buildings now used as small shops, cafes and restaurants. A walk uphill out of Daylesford leads us to the Farmers Arms Hotel which is an iconic old building which still serves as a bar and restaurant. As we enjoy a drink, the bar gradually fills up with men calling in for a drink presumably on the way home. Afternoon gives way to evening and after a lesson by the young barmaid in turning an air conditioning unit to a heater I am finally warm enough to get ready to go out!

Tonight, we fancy a steak and we’ve seen a steakhouse advertised in a doorway, it looks promising. There’s no frontage just a door, up the stairs is a two-room restaurant with the smaller looking like a gentlemen’s club complete with real wood fire, gorgeous. The steak is amazing and according to the waitress just for lunch time, but they’ll do it now for us, if they think it isn’t big enough, they’re wrong!




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