A day in the Yarra Valley

Feeling a bit loopy after spending far too long indoors trying to get the hang of uploading videos (with slow broadband) and messing with the website &, being our last day with the car, I suggested a nice drive to the Yarra Valley. Now we have had cracker weather for days but the radio was giving us a high wind warning & things were blowing around all over the place. At last we got out of the seemingly interminable suburbs and got into the lush, green Yarra Valley full of bare but elegant grape vines, fine old wooden houses & we were really in the countryside. We went to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary &, braving the cold & the rain, met some of the locals. In the evening we drove to Mt Waverley to the Choral Eisteddfod where we listened to a fine selection of choirs.

World Choral Tour Begins – Melbourne

Melbourne turned on perfect winter weather for the start of our World Choral Tour. We began, as you do, to explore this gorgeous city by tram and on foot. We were thrilled by the cockatoos in the Botanic Gardens and amazed by the architecture old and new.

Yesterday the ‘work’ began with a visit to Toorak College which is not, as one might expect, in Toorak, but way down the coast perched above Port Philip Bay at Mt. Eliza. We were welcomed by Donna Wallis and Prudence Patullo and entertained by Intermezzi, a choir of year 5 – 8 girls, singing of the sea. Prudence & the girls, while working hard putting the finishing touches on their performance for a concert in two weeks, were all obviously enjoying themselves & they looked & sounded great.

We drove back to Melbourne via the richly forested Dandenong Ranges & got up close & personal with flocks of cockatoos, galahs & brilliant parakeets being hand-fed by some tourists.