The Bendigo or Bust Road Trip (Day Two)

Up. Breakfast. And round the corner to the woollen mills just after they opened (with one false start caused by my constant belief that I don't really need a map as I. Can. Find. Anything. Except woollen mills, it would seem...)There's a photo of the boot of the car after we hauled our swag out of the shop.You're not going to see it.

Suffice to say I got a rather bad case of the "Me Too!"s especially as the lovely Happy Spider kept throwing any bags of black and white stuff she found at me... Oh well, I figure it's shared stash and besides, it cost about the same as those two haircuts I didn't have.

While lolling in bed the previous evening I'd read about a mohair farm just out of town that we could visit. I could tell Happy Spider was getting twitchy through lack of rabbit love and the blurb for the farm promised "The children will love the alpacas, red deer, pigs, rabbits, pigeons and poultry" So we deleted a few op shops from our list of places to visit and headed out to Goldfields Mohair Farm.Bad decision. We think it's because the farm's for sale. Or maybe it was the fact it was a Monday. Or the fact that the poor bloke behind the counter was having problems with the fact two (relatively) young chicks actually knitted! And not just 8 ply! We knew you could get a scarf out of a skein of mohair! When Happy Spider started looking at stuff for spinning I think his brain just went "poof!" and exploded.

I almost bought some very fine wool for mini knitting until Happy Spider nudged me and hissed that she had heaps of very fine wool and could make it whatever colour I wanted when and if I had time to do something with it. We asked about a tour. He said there weren't any. We left.We'd been idly contemplating a stop at the SPC Ardmona factory outlet just outside Shepperton but by the time we left Bendigo we were cutting it fine for time. Stopping for petrol and an icecream hit at some place beginning with E didn't help and I'd pretty much given up the concept of geting there before it closed.

But back on the road my tendencies to try and meet a challenge kicked in and I tucked in behind a local (an old trick of my Father's) and did just a little bit over the speed limit all the way to Mooroopna, constantly evaluating my chances of making it in time every time we passed a sign with distances printed on it. I knew that, if by some miracle we made it there before it closed it would be with less that 10 minutes' leeway. We pulled into the carpark at 4:57pm. Raced up to the entrance where the chap on the door told us they were closed. "We're only after tomatoes!" wailed Happy Spider. "And we're from Canberra and only in town for the daaaaaay!" I added in the most plaintive way possible.

He let us in. We dashed past the startled check out operators. "Tomatoes?!" we puffed. They pointed. We sprinted. Scooped up our quarry and were back outside with a carton of tinned tomatoes each at 5:06pm. Wishing we had more time to check out all the other amazing looking piles in the massive outlet and already discussing a (more leisurely) return trip.

I chuckled maniacally sporadically all the way to Wangaratta where we delighted in a swim in our motel's pool (well worth the extra $10 each we had to pay compared to the original place we'd booked in Albury), followed by a Thai takeout (and a drink while we waited for it to be cooked).Then there was a crappy movie on TV which we watched while Happy Spider worked on her latest knitting project and I clutching a set of (empty) bamboo needles in one hand and had the other hand buried in a $3 bag of wool Happy Spider had scored from Vinnies Bendigo. I felt like oddly like Al Bundy but with more style...