Winter Holiday : Clunes, Goldfields Area, Victoria

Clunes is a gorgeous little Goldfields town / Ballarat / Daylesford Area.

I couldn't believe my luck when we drove into Clunes, HARD RUBBISH / Junk Everywhere with a few hours of daylight left.  We found our accommodation, I dropped our bags in the front door and read the note on the kitchen table `Elizabeth, please, please, please excuse the unsightly mess in town :

I was bursting with excitement.

My first hard rubbish experience ever, and all around hilly, beautiful Clunes.  I was actually hoping that I wouldn't find anything adorably antique that would have to be freighted back to Geelong, and after a few blocks of hill climbs, I decided that the exhausted looking couple carrying a gorgeous dresser down the main street had been carrying goodies home all day. I was looking at the leftovers.  Lots of grotty microwave's, mattresses, building material yard junk, but the walk through this quaint little hamlet, past the old butter factory, the majestic old public library, the old school of mining was amazing.

I love this preserved old town, the dusty shopfront windows under charming old awnings: no franchise stores, no discount $2 shops: a great butcher, a green grocer with the crunchiest royal gala apples ever and a gorgeous old fashioned lolly shop.

Our girls love a holiday, a `holiday house', bunk beds, anything different to the day-to-day.

Lucille and Arabella loved the games cupboard: Connect Four, a Madagascar Movie Marathon and `marshmellows on a stick' / also a treat at the lolly shop.

Audrey loved moving the gnome around, exploring the farm grounds and calling the emu.

Shane loved playing with his new camera and cooking yummy roast dinner's & the lolly shop.

I loved the latest Frankie, Dumbo Feather, Interior Design Magazines, and the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in: goose feather pillows / doona, organic cotton bedlinen.

Although to be honest I actually didn't sleep a wink at all in five nights.  I was on Night Watch.  A bout of holiday house night terrors, waiting for someone to burst through the back door in the middle of the night : my overtired active mind drives me CrAZy!

Can anyone relate to this feeling?  The farmhouse was off a gravel road, so with every gravelly / car engine sound: I was a nervous wreck.  The house wasn't far from the railway lines.  I was awake all night, for every passing train, midnight, 3 am, 6 am.  By the end of the week, I couldn't function.

The farmhouse ? the outdoor toilet ? my over-active imagination ? : a , b or c

I love having holiday dates booked and I love getting away, but I also love, love, love coming home.

Oh ( the last photo looks like I am in terrified mode ) We are playing Hide and Seek.