Christmas Day at Creswick

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Benalla, Burrumbeet and Ballarat

For those who are aware of my complete lack of facility with card games, you might be interested to know that I was invited to a bridge party. The photo below perhaps explains this curiosity. My brother Ross and Christine have a tradition of a Christmas get-together with their Emu Bridge Road neighbours.

On our way back from the cousins’ reunion, we stopped in to see my brother John and Joy at their pub at Burrumbeet. Despite a power outage, Joy produced one of her usual famous lunches.

As kids, we used to sail on Lake Burrumbeet on the few occasions that our usual venue of Lake Wendouree in Ballarat was dry. For those who may not recall, this involved a particularly nerve-racking drive along the Avenue of Honour with the Arafura Cadet tied to the roof racks on the EH Premier. It is only recently that both lakes are again full of water after so many years of being quite dry.

Dad suggested that we drop by the Grammar school on our way through Ballarat. I had not been back since I left 40 years ago. A very pleasant lady gave us a comprehensive tour of the facilities, much evolved from my days there. It was interesting to realise how much Dad had contributed to the school during the days of the controversial amalgamation with the sister school. The evidence of my contributions were the several buildings on which I had worked as a brickie’s labourer during school holidays.

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Cousins Reunion

Back in Australia for two weeks to spend Christmas with the family. Following on from the tradition set by Dad and Uncle Jack, a cousins reunion was organised in Bendigo.

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Kings Cup

I was in Phuket in December for the Kings Cup. I have been coming to this event almost since it began in 1987. Initially I was competing on Buzzard and Big Buzzard, but very gradually my role morphed into the organisation side of things. Now I work flat out for three days before the event and then when the racing starts, I do cameo appearances on different boats each day of the six day regatta.

Here we are measuring sails in the air-conditioned ballroom of the Kata Beach Resort, a principal sponsor of the event. They also provide a very comfortable room with a delightful view over the swimming pools out over Kata Bay, which I normally couldn't afford.

At one of the (many) parties, we had an unofficial reunion of the Buzzard crew, with some of us being in the original lineup. Same stories, but the faces were looking a bit older if not necessarily wiser.

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Bologna

Ingrid and Pucci had arranged some time ago for us to spend a non-work and non-boat weekend together. So, straight after school on Friday afternoon we set off for the six hour drive down to Bologna. Ingrid, being exhausted from work, was asleep almost before we hit the autobahn. It is actually not a boring trip. The first hour is getting to the Austrian border, then an hour across Austria which is all mountains and Alps. Even without the signs, you know when you cross the border into Italy, as everyone’s driving style changes from cruise to sport mode. The three hours from the Brenner Pass to Verona is all downhill along the Adige valley and quite fascinating Alpine scenery. The last hour across the flat Po delta was rendered quite interesting by an incredibly thick fog. Here you witness a huge variety of driving styles, from pedestrian to lunatic.

The first task on Saturday morning was to find the best cappuccino in Bologna. Pucci took us to the Gran Café in Via Altabelle in the centre of the old part of the city where we had a truly excellent coffee in a very genuine looking old café.

It was fun being a full-on tourist in a place where I had lived for 8 years, albeit 20 years ago. Aldo and Pucci found it to be an interesting novelty as well. If you are able to blinker out the modern day accoutrements of McDonalds, power lines and traffic it is very easy to be enveloped by the medieval atmosphere of the city centre.

We visited one of my favourite haunts, the Santo Stefano basilica, also known as le Sette Chiese (as it is a complex of seven churches, although I have only ever been able to find four or five of them.)

On Sunday, we went out into the country for a traditional long Romagna lunch of deep fried flat bread, piadina with salami, prosciutto, pickled greens and squacquerone, a very soft cheese produced in the Romagna part of the Appenines. As usual, it was gorgeous and we all overate.  So, bloated, we set off back up the autostrada home to Munich wanting never to see food again.

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Schrannenhalle

Sunday was one of those perfect, clear, very crisp Autumn days. So, being Lohhof out-of-towners we decided on a day out in the big city. We had seen the long wrought iron and glass structure just off the Viktualienmarkt and had heard that it had been renovated. The Schrannenhalle was originally a corn exchange and was 430m long. The 100m plus bit that remains has been restored and now offers somewhat upmarket culinary treats. Ingrid soon found the Champagne Bar and I found the best coffee in Munich (which may not necessarily be saying much!) The Michelin-starred restaurant in the market was packed, so we had some delightful pasta at one of our favourite cafes, Baricentro in Sebastiansplatz.

The air was so clear. Except for the near zero temperature, it seemed as if we were back in Perth on one of those days when you look out beyond Rottnest from Leighton Beach and the sea appears to curve away until it runs into Madagascar.

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Aschaffenburg

On the way home from Belgium, we took the opportunity to put another couple of blue dots on our Castles of Bavaria poster by staying overnight in Aschaffenburg in northern Bavaria. The next morning we visited the Johannisburg Palace and the Pompeiianum on the banks the Main River.

In the Palace museum we found the world’s largest collection of cork architectural models. These amazing intricately carved reproductions of the ruins of Rome were created by the court confectioner and his son in the 1790’s.

Later in the morning we ventured out of town to the Schoenbusch Palace. We wandered around the English style gardens and, being back in Germany, had lunch at the biergarten.

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