Traveling the world in my own backyard

This is my favourite way of spending the weekend. We drove to Warburton, a town about 76kms from Melbourne in the Shire of Yarra Ranges. This is our second week there, we were there last week with Koe, our fur kid. We tracked up La La Falls (La La means welcome welcome in aboriginal).

I loved it so much, it's so romantic, lush, the trees, the valley, hills, river, shops ..so inviting. We went back today again. Just being in the forest and surrounding hills makes me feel nourished, my soul fed and ahhhhh...

Today was extra special because of a few people we met on the way.

Danny the wood artist at Powelltown - he does carving and etching of snakes, dragons, eagles, chain saw on wood. Danny had long grey hair tied up in a ponytail, wore a flannel shirt with jeans, reminds me of some people I met in US. We bought a large piece of wood with coat hangers made out from steel bullhead rails taken from the old train tracks nearby (probably Belgrave - oh no...from Puffing Billy?). They dont make things like that anymore. This will be an antique one day. Ours had Ayers Rock inspired on it.

Then we met a Finnish woman at the shop in Warburton selling beautiful wood crafted home knick knacks. We shared so many stories about our families, how she came to Australia, how her husband proposed, how the other people view her in town and her interests. We also found out that her husband is running for local council. Hmmm...might be worthwhile to think about retiring in Warburton - they make really good bruschetta.

But the most interesting of all must be the Polish Jester, Kristof Kaczmarek. We ate at the Polish restaurant named Polish Jester. The owner treated us like his closest friends, he even shared his SPECK - hardened pork fat. His idea of staying healthy is revolutionary, he thinks fat is the way to go especially the saturated fat. He had facts to prove it - look at the top 3 countries with lowest mortality rates - Japanese, Greeks, Swedish - all with high cholesterol in their diet. He's also an actor and director for Russian plays. His restaurant has a rustic setting, with very thick and heavy handmade wooden tables & stools taking us back to the medieval european times. We joked about Polish sausages, had Polish saurkeraut, dumplings, hunter stew while sipping balsam vodka and drinking Okocim, a typical brand of traditional polish beer.

Just one short afternoon, I felt I had been to Route 66 when I met Danny, to Finland Christmas town when we shared family stories with Leila and into the comfort of Poland homes when we shared our interest in food with Kristof.