Weekend away in Bendigo

Last weekend we planned to go to Bendigo in Country Victoria with Jo and Ian to go to a sheep and wool fayre. Chris and I got the train up on the Friday night and arrived at the place we were due to stay at about 8.30 pm to find it all locked up and noone around.... We called the no on the details and left messages but no answer.... Upon checking the confirmation, it said if you were going to arrive LATE then let them know in advance but it did not mention what late was...

We hung around outside the hotel for a bit and waited for Jo and Ian to turn up and hope that they had organised a late check in... When they arrived, it became clear they had been no more organised than we were.... So we were stuck in Bendigo with nowhere to stay on quite possibly one of the busiest nights of the year and all the other accommodation was full.... So we all got back into Ian and Jo's car and drove the 1.5 h back to Melbourne - not great when we were all exhausted after a long week at work and too much beer at Annelies' leaving do at the Belgian Beer Cafe the night before!!!!

On the Saturday morning, we called the hotel and found out that they closed at 8pm on the Friday night (mental note - Country Australia is on a different timescale to the rest of the world!)... However, we also found out that they had not given our rooms away and so headed back to Bendigo on the Saturday morning.

After checking into the hotel, we went to the Sheep and Wool fayre. We saw lots of crafty things - wool. felts etc as well as sheep, alpacas and sheep dog trials which was all good fun.

On the Saturday night, we drank too much which was fun but not so good on the Sunday morning... Still after a good breakfast we all felt a lot better, had a wander round Bendigo and went to the Chinese Museum which was awesome.

On our way back to Melbourne, we went to Hanging Rock - inspiration for the book and film "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and went for a walk there. It is a really cool place which was caused by volcanic rocks. Definately worth a visit when we have people over as it is not very far outside of Melbourne.