Another year of Adventure Days commences....

Hope you have all had a fantastic Christmas and a very very happy New Year. As with the past few years when I am not away in our camper "Myrtle", once a week I take myself on an Adventure Day to explore my environment. So seeing it's the first week of 2018, I decided it was a perfect day to commence my adventures. Although this was a bit different as Shane came along for the ride and the day actually turned into a "foodventure". One night while watching telly we heard about an orchard in the Yarra Valley that sounded like it could be FUN. Seeing I live on the outskirts of the Yarra Valley why not check it out. The Yarra Valley is probably best known for the extensive and wonderful wines the area produces, but with its extremely fertile soil it is also an excellent area to grow lots of varied produce.

Beautiful fertile rolling hills

Driving through the beautiful rolling green hills we saw a sign "Cherries for sale". Now seeing we are both partial to a nice plump fresh cherry it was an obvious first stop. So our first stop was at Lanidale Orchard "The Cherry Well" in Wandin. Lanidale is a family run business that grows Cherries and Apricots, but today all they had were Cherries. But what a beautiful selection they did have, such as the sweetest  Sweethearts right through to the very sour Morello. After tasting all the different varieties they had, we purchased 1kg of the Sweethearts. If you are a fan of cherries you should check out the Victorian Cherry Trail on www.cherries.org.au
I think that could be another adventure for next cherry season. 

Magnificent Cherries

Next stop was Raynors Stonefruit Orchard in Worri Yallock. Raynors Orchard is another family run business. Throughout the year they grow around 450 varieties of fruit. We went on a tractor tour where we told about the different fruits and had tastings. Also on the tour you could pick and eat as much as you wanted - interesting time. You could also pick any fruit to take home and pay only $5.00 per kilo. 

Tractor Tour

Nothing better than the taste of fruit straight from the tree

Just a bit of what we bought

There was a row of magnificent Sunflowers

Of course I had to buy one, only $2

Absolutely beautiful countryside

From there we headed onto Yarra Glen to the very yummy Yarra Valley Choclaterie and ice creamery.  Set on 16 hectares of beautiful countryside this is a chocolate heaven with over 250 varieties of chocolates.

At the front door you are offered free samples.
Limited to one spoonful.....

Pretty Tasty pizza

After a yummy pizza and of course an ice cream we headed off home chocolates in tow.

Pistachio Ice-cream

No too bad considering....

One last stop on the way home was Sugarloaf Dam. Sugarloaf Dam is one of approx. nine water catchments that supply Melbourne and surrounding areas with water. Sugarloaf Dam has a capacity of 96,000 million litres. It was completed in 1981 and supplies the northern, western and central suburbs of Melbourne. Every time I come up here to visit I think of my late Dad. We were out going for a drive (we even had Adventure Days back then) and after buying fish and chips for lunch we sat in the Sugarloaf grounds eating our lunch and discussing how much water and how many trees were here. My Dad always used to say "I don't know what those greenies are on about, look at all these trees".

A very small corner of Sugarloaf Dam

Seeing I had filled up on fruit, pizza, ice cream and chocolate throughout the day dinner was pretty light on, but I did sit down and enjoy a nice cold beer. 

Mmmmm.... Nice way to end the day

So my first adventure day for 2018 may have been different but as everything must be, it was FUN.

Do you ever take yourself of on an adventure day? If you do I'd love to hear about them.  If not give it a try, explore your environment. You may just be pleasantly surprised to find what's hiding out there.