Along with Ben Balbo, Dave Hall (aka ‘skwashd’), Donna Benjamin (aka ‘KatteKrab’) and Joshua May (aka ‘notjosh’) I’ve been helping to organise a BarCamp in central Victoria, known as StixCamp. The location for this year’s StixCamp is Welshman’s Reef Vineyard, near Newstead. After swapping cars with my sister, who has a large station wagon that drives smoothly up treacherous hills and handles curves better than my buzzbox, I was off to pick up my passenger, Jackson. All was rosy. Half way to Waurn Ponds and stuck at traffic lights, a stranger came up to me in traffic to let me know that my tyre was flat! Grr! Well, Jackson was very adept at changing tyres and earnt his ride 🙂 . Soon we were on the road again.

I choose to go through Ballan, Daylesford, Hepburn Springs then Newstead to Welshmans Reef because if anything else went wrong with the car at least it would be in a populated area. These towns are simply beautiful – the scenary is amazing. One shudders to think how close they all came to being destroyed in the recent Black Saturday bushfires.

Finally, we arrived at Welshmans Reef Vineyard where I met the lovely Julia and Ron (Jackson’s parents). The vineyard building itself is pretty amazing – hand built by Ron from mudbrick and timber, with a cellar cut into the ground that has a drive in entrance on the opposite side of the building.

Dave had pitched a tent for me so that I wouldn’t have to pitch one in the dark (thanks Dave) and needless to say I slept like a baby.

Note to self: next time zip up the flyscreen on the tent to stop mozzies biting you.