The Tallest Trees in the British Empire

Not long after we arrived in Melbourne, Matt and I saw a vintage travel poster for Australia that boasted the "The Tallest Trees in the British Empire" in a little town not far from here. Matt has wanted to see them since then, and this weekend, after my dad arrived for a visit, we all went out to the Yarra Valley. About an hour outside Melbourne is a beautiful valley of farms and vineyards that grows some of the best wine grapes in Australia, and just beyond the valley is a small range of mountains where you can still find miles of Mountain Ash trees. They are incredibly tall and straight, and while they were mostly chopped down to build ships and towns, some stands still remain and they are magnificent. My photo does not do them justice. There are enormous ferns growing around the base of the trees and it makes the landscape look prehistoric. Jake kept exclaiming that this is what it looked like in the time of the dinosaurs.

It was a lovely weekend. We stayed in the quaint town of Healesville, not far from the spectacular Healesville Animal Sanctuary, in a little cottage on the edge of cow pasture that had a trampoline in the back yard. Jake and Lucy were thrilled by the trampoline and had to be pried off of it so that we could go do all the fun things we had planned. They would have been just as happy to spend the weekend on the trampoline.

Jake and I took a hike across the cow pasture (being careful to avoid the cow patties) and up a hill that overlooked valley, vineyards, cows and sheep. We took pictures of each other, of cows, and a couple of us together. I had such a good time walking and talking with him. He really thrives out in nature.

We also went back to the animal santuary, where I first fell in love with the wombat. It was a warm day and my wombat was sleeping in his burrow.

But out in the open was another wombat named Maggie, who did us the favor of sleeping in such a way that we could get a good look at her. There are heaps of wombats roaming the countryside, what Australians call the bush; so many that there were a number of road signs alerting drivers to their presence.

On Sunday it was chillier and every half hour it would rain for 5 minutes, so we got soaked a few times, but we managed a couple wine tastings and a disorienting walk through a giant hedge maze that Jake loved. My poor jet-lagged dad hung in there and Lucy was a champ. As long as she is with Jake and doing the exact same thing as Jake, she is generally happy. We are thinking of enrolling her in second grade with him when we get home. We think she'll do just fine.