A Day in Healesville

On a rare Saturday that I am not working, we decided to head to Healesville, Victoria. It is a town 52 km northeast of Melbourne CBD and about an hours drive. It was a long drive but a scenic one. I had fun watching the plains and valleys and wineries along the way.

Our first agenda was to visit a colleague/friend's cafe. She has set this up with her husband who was a chef. We found them at Black Spur Nursery and Cafe. While waiting for our orders, we looked around the nursery. It would have been nice to buy one but there is no space and time to take care of it so we dropped the idea. Finally our orders arrived and it was delish!

Next on our list was to visit Hedgend Maze. I found a Groupon voucher with about $4 discount for this attraction. Regular adult price was $18. Joel always wanted to try a maze and it was the perfect time to try it. We went to Hedgend and just presented our voucher. The attendants then gave each of us a wristband, a map of the place which also contains the things we can do and a pencil.

First we headed off to the mini golf. The last time we had one was months ago and because the last one was my very first one, I lost the game. There were 18 holes on this mini golf and even though Joel had a hole in one, I beat him by 6 points! Haha

The next thing we did was the native maze. I had a lot of fun with this. It's a trust maze and one person has to be blindfolded and another person directs with his voice. I was blind folded first and Joel successfully guided me without running over a bush. Of course, when it was my turn to blurt out the directions, I wasn't as good as him.

The famous hedge maze was next on our list, I felt quite claustrophobic going into it. We had to find a secret message from the encircled letters of a statement made by a famous person. It was difficult and we gave up after finding 7 letters LOL. The maze had parts that are not yet fully grown so some people would cut to them. I also was kind of feeling dizzy from walking within the walls so we headed out of it.

We then headed out to the look out tower wherein we saw how vast the land area was, the top view of the Hedge Maze and we can also see another maze called the Rainbow Maze.

It is a colour pathway with 4 levels of difficulty. Level 1 was easy - The aim was to go from start to end staying on the red pathway.

There were other activities such as Tangled web, Mural Eyespy, Frisbee Golf, Fossil Dig, Lawn Games and etc.

There was also a picnic and BBQ area for family gatherings. It was a productive Saturday for us and we headed back to Melbourne happily. There is another attraction there called the Healesville Sanctuary that we might visit in the future.

Thank you for reading and 'til next blog!

Arthurs Seat 2019

For our first day trip in 2019, me and Joel decided to go to Arthurs Seat. As per history, the first British explorers entered Port Philip in 1802 and named the hill Arthurs Seat due to its resemblance to Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh, Scotland.

We went down there last 5 January 2019 and left Melbourne at about 1 in the afternoon. The weather in Melbourne was cloudy and the forecast was cloudy at Arthurs Seat as well but will be sunny at around 5pm. We were in no rush and were also prepared to be disappointed because of the weather. The drive was about an hour and along the way, it was really rainy so we were in doubt if we made the right decision.

The clouds were already rolling away when we arrived at Arthurs Seat. We were happy to see this but because we got confused, we drove directly to the Summit Station. Parking was free in both base and summit station. As expected the roads were winding and there were a lot of lookouts along the way.

We were ready with our jumpers because the weather can get chilly in a split second. As with any other parks in Australia, helpful signs are along the way.

Arthurs Seat is the highest point of the beautiful Mornington Peninsula. I saw glimpses of the view when we were driving up but the best view can be from the gondolas. First we headed off to the  Eagle Cafe as we were both craving for hot drinks. This gave us time to decide what things to do while up there. 

 This was our view.

First we decided to head to  Arthurs Chair as well as the lookout.

Then we headed out to check the Enchanted Adventure Garden which was about 2-3 minutes walk from the cafe.  It features 3 hedge mazes, 5 giant tube slides and many more. It also features tree surfing wherein there are high ropes adventure with zip lines. General Admission is $30 per adult and $20 per child/senior. It would take about 2-3 hours to take utmost advantage of the place. We realized we had limited time and will be back to conquer it next time.

We then decided to go back to the base station and paid $24 for a return ticket per adult to ride the gondola. No long line to get into the gondola during that time and we had one to our own. We used their map to spot things from the gondola.

Back to the summit station.

We still had time so armed with our map, we went to check out other walking paths. The day was already nice and it was interesting to see different kinds of trees in their gardens. There were a lot of spots for picnics and relaxation.

Another lookout.

This is Flinders Cairn. It's a stone monument marking the site where Captain Matthew Flinders, the leader of the first circumnavigation of Australia and identified it as a continent, saw Port Philip. A stone cairn was used to mark a historical location at that time. At present, it has been enlarged.

We were satisfied with our time up there so we then headed to ride the gondola back to the base station. We were happy the day turned out not so bad. Another must visit place in Victoria conquered! Thank you and 'til next blog!