Fryerstown, Vic, Nov 2022

Day 4 Wednesday 9/11/2022 Fyerstown, warm 23

We’re up early for a trip to Castlemaine. The hikers leave even earlier and we discover that they’ve flooded the second bathroom. Our boys get in and clean up the mess. We take a short walk around the Castlemaine botanic gardens before fronting up to a huge breakfast at Das Kaffeehaus at The Mill arts precinct. Even after the floods, the botanic gardens are looking lovely and the creek is still flowing fast. We had breakfast at Das Kaffeehaus last February and Toothless wants a repeat of the goulash offering. Woody and T dare to start the day with a Bloody Mary.

Back at camp, I walk up the hill to the cemetery before the day warms. On an old quartz gravel road, there are paddocks of sheep, beehives, and wildflowers. Yellow everlastings, purple ‘chocolate’ lilies, the pink, cream and white of hawthorn bushes, and closer to the ground the yellow and brown of egg and bacon plants.

The cemetery is a peaceful spot set amongst the gums are iron fences and worn almost indecipherable headstones. Amongst them all, there is a newish memorial to the first Mulready to arrive in Australia. I snap a photo to send off to a cousin who has Mulready ancestors.

We have a quiet afternoon chatting and dozing on the veranda. Anna the caretaker drops by and collects our now substantial fees as we don’t want to leave the money in the letterbox. We cook a Thai Chicken Curry for dinner.

Accom: $20.00

Note: As kids, we grew up near an old bush cemetery similar to this one and spent a lot of time there. Growing wild and abundantly in the cemetery were Watsonia lilies. In the picture marked above, you can see the bright green lily leaves of the watsonias. And I can still hear the voices of our parents “…and don’t you kids bring back any of those bloody watsonias!”