I love to explore. This weekend had both the Newstead short story and Clunes book fair on so we made our way to those parts. In-between book buying, reading, listening to stories and eating cake with friends we went driving and walking and photo taking. The weather was spectacular, the autumn sun was very generous. Kidlet and I did drawing in my new sketch book ( Which I will post later ) – she drew a naughty woman who cut the hill in half and had a fanny on her head.

^ babe ^

We decided to stay the night in a motel, all sleeping in the same room. We haven’t done that in long time so it was really fun. It also meant we could go to the fire stories and stay for the whole event. I didn’t know how long we would last, but we managed to stay AND I managed to toast some marshmallows for us to enjoy.

The stories and music were great, kidlet danced and danced. I especially enjoyed the reading by Kirsten Krauth and Joe Dolce’s music and stories.

^ Photos by Gene! ^

The next morning we were greeted by a cup of tea in the warm sun, bird prints all over our car and chats with Lin while the horse next door trotted proudly about. We didn’t stick around, opting to take back roads from Newstead through Moolort to Clunes, so I could take some pictures.

^ Kidlet took this! ^

We came across and old bridge and pulled over so I could take some snaps. I took the wrong lens but found it to be so beautiful I had to get the other two to join me.

This is the McLennan Bridge – you can read about it here.

It is so beautiful.

Eventually we made to to Clunes and ate bagels in the sun. It was quite busy by the time we had arrived. I’ve never seen Clunes like that! We looked at some books and popped into see a few things. We got to see Tai Snaith and Nicholas Jones in action. Which was pretty special as I was just reading Tai’s latest book to kidlet just recently.

After that we though that maybe we should go home as we were running out of steam.
How awesome is Victoria!