Back to nature

Today we took a day off from trying to organize everything and headed out to the Maroondah Reservoir, about an hours drive from where we live. The weather was nice, and since it’s Friday, we were more or less alone.

The last week since we’ve been in country have been pretty hectic. We’ve been really busy with furniture, school, car (post to follow) and lots of other small things, while all the while still fighting with the lingering effects of jet-lag. So we decided it was time to take a short break and smell some fresh air. And our choice for location to do so fell (more or less randomly) on the Maroondah Reservoir.

So we packed a lunch, got in the car and headed out.

The drive out there goes through the Yarra Valley, past quite a few of the wineries. Having been inside the city for the past week, where you can drive for hours through houses on the left and right, it is quite a sight to all of a sudden drive through quite expansive countryside. Very refreshing, too.

Once we got there, it turned out that we were pretty much alone. Logical, as today was the last day of school for the local educational institutions. And, by local standards, still pretty cold (only 15 degrees).

The reservoire hold parts of the drinking water for Melbourne. It was completed in 1927 and can hold up to 22.000 million liters of water.

From the dam we made our way through the woods back to the car, with some lunch along the way.

After lunch we headed back to the car-park, where we found a former teacher feeding the local birds. This gave us a lot of opportunities to take pictures of the local wildlife.

After this encounter we headed back out towards home, stopping to take a picture of the (probably) most famous road-sign of Australia. We’re (almost) touristst, after all… 🙂