DAY 27 – Saturday 27th April

A morning of wine tastings – well, someone has to do it!

First one was the Dominique Portet vinery, owned by a French family but now producing wine from their own vineyards just outside Melbourne. Our oenologist is pictured below –

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Moved 15mins down the road to the Rochford winery. Nicer wines here – in fact, we purchased a few bottles! Picture follows of the tasting.

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Drove on to the small town of Healesville, and stopped only long enough to grab some lunch – typically of Australia a small lunch is huge – a BLT sandwich arrives 6″ high!

We had to rush on to meet our booking on the Puffing Billy Steam Train, departing from Menzies Creek to Lakeside. A few photos follow which show that we weren’t travelling business class! A grand journey was had, however, on this 2ft 6in gauge railway run entirely by volunteers. Built around 1860 it served the people of the area for a number of years before going in to disrepair. Now fully restored, it is a major tourist attraction –

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Dropped back at hotel around 5pm, in time for us to walk to the Comedy Theatre for tonight’s performance of Barnum. Unfortunately, the publicity hadn’t made clear that this was the opening night of a week of previews, not the opening night of the run! Pre-show, we were warned by the Director, that there may have to be some stops during the show for technical reasons – there was one, when a clipped on backcloth became detached on one side, and the scene had to be restarted. Good physical theatre in the show, inc acrobatics, hoop, trapeze and silks, although one of the two girls on the silks was definitely not having a good silk day! Excellent entry by the female Ringmaster who dropped horizontally from the fly into the outstretched arms of 4 guys!

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Barnum was obviously, locally, well known, since all his asides and ad libs brought cheers from the audience. Charity was excellent as was Jenny Lind – who was born in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Back now to get this done and prepare for an early start tomorrow.