It was a cool week-end, in fact, a return to what felt like winter. The guys finished around 4.30pm on Friday, by which time I had decided it was cool enough to justify a final Friday night outdoor fire. An impromptu casual dinner followed with a couple of good friends, a bottle or two of red, and some black bean nachos cooked over the fire. Then toasted marshmallows to follow, which is much more about the ritual of toasting the marshmallows than it is about the actual taste. A good start to what was to be a good week-end.

Saturday, Paul did a little bit of work on the renovations, a few fixtures added to the bathroom, and a bit of filling ready some more painting on Sunday. Saturday evening and another couple of friends came over to share our company. Dinner and more wine! A great night, to much food of course, and probably a bit much wine too. Neither of us really overdid it though as we anticipated a full day of painting on Sunday.

Sunday started with a leisurely breakfast prior to commencement of the painting. Then the phone rang. Kaye says, “ Brian and I are going to do that drive over to Balingup today, would you two like to join us?” Painting walls, or being chauffeured around the countryside? Of course we chose the latter, the painting could wait.

What a lovely relaxing day. Brian had been told about a pleasant drive that started about 20kms before Nannup which would take us through some lovely forest to Balingup, then we would take the Balingup/Nannup road for our return. Here’s a map of the days travels.

We found the road, as advised, about 20 kms short of Nannup. It took us past a field with dozens of old delapidated caravans, and thousands of red hens. Turned out the caravans are the accommodation for the Out ‘n’ About, free to roam egg farm. I must say I was impressed. More about that in a later post perhaps….

Not exactly knowing where the road led, we turned back on ourselves once or thrice throughout the day. Instead of seeing multiple fountains (all the same one), we seemed to be seeing multiple Out ‘n’ About chooks and their caravan homes – the fountain’s another story though and a bit of a joke between us and our travelling companions.

We eventually found ourselves in the quaint little town of Balingup. It’s years since any of us have there, and my goodness, hasn’t that little town just blossomed, growing into the promised quaintness it was showing the last time we went there. That must have been at least 20 years ago.

A bit of a lunch first at The Mushroom Cafe, amazing pies, and a delicious lemon Meringue pie (a pie each, followed by one serve of lemon meringue pie with 4 dessert forks – yes it was that BIG). Then a meander around the town to help it all go down.

Obviously recognising that Sunday is a good day for people to be out ‘n’ about, most retail businesses were open. I found a gorgeous little wool shop, but stopped short of buying more wool. I don’t know why but country wool shops always appeal to my creative side and usually inspire the beginning of another crafty project. However nothing seems to inspire me to complete any of the said projects, so this time I used restraint. Instead of buying more wool, I instead took with me an idea for using some alpaca wool purchased during one of my previous, moment of madness, purchases.

Here are some pictures from around the little village of Balingup.

Then back home via the Balingup/Nannup road. First a look around the Wrights camp ground – inspiring for a caravan trip one day perhaps. Then a stop at Nannup on the way and another stop at the new brewery, The Shelter, on Busselton foreshore.

A pleasurable day was had by all, and the wall painting on the home front – well tomorrow’s another day, it’ll wait.