Grand Final Day

The plan was to leave the farm, return to Ballarat to continue shopping for a few more items, spend the night camped on Carole’s drive and then leave on Sunday morning to see friends for lunch.

First, we had to draft a couple of hundred sheep. That means separating one flock into two or more flocks - in our case, two; one for shearing and one that had already been sheared. Dale had already collected Molly, his brother’s working collie sheepdog, who would do most of the work. Elsie, the young Kelpy sheepdog would be around on a lead to observe and learn. Everything went to plan and the sheep were soon sorted out. Elsie had been allowed into the pen with Molly and me so that she could help drive the sheep through the race. She was very enthusiastic and of limited help.

After sorting the sheep, Dale and I cleaned and filled an old bath with water for the sheep, went to collect the fire truck and also found an old compressor that Dale was giving us to take on our journey. Meanwhile, Bun was encouraging and helping Henry tidy his room while Charlotte made two batches of chocolate chip cookies and gave one batch to us. We said our goodbyes and set off knowing that, with reasonable sunshine and full water tanks, we could camp independently for several days.

We drove to Ballarat to find that most of the shops that we wanted to visit were shut - something to do with ‘the grand final”. I left Bun shopping for more storage items etc and went to the first of three sports pubs that had been recommended as places where I could watch the match and enjoy the event. Murphy’s Bar was showing the match to about 6 people. I left and walked to the Sporting Globe which was far more lively. Upstairs was quite raucous, so I went to the bar bought a pint and sat on a free stool next to a couple a few years older than me. It wasn’t long before the bloke next to me turned around, asked me my name and introduced himself as Melvyn … or was it Mervin? Over the following 90 minutes, we became besties and reckoned we’d meet up somewhere on the road around Oz. He was more interested in telling me about his life in the army than watching the match, but he was good company and became very animated as the lead flip-flopped between the two teams. The final score put Melbourne’s Collingwood 10 points ahead of Brisbane’s team, so the locals were happy.

I met up with Bun and we went to Carole’s for dinner, a film and bed. Meet up tomorrow at Macca’s.Read more