Over the June long weekend, I was lucky enough to snag my brothers holiday house at Gough’s Bay. Gough’s Bay…… I can hear you all saying. Gough’s Bay is a lovely little town on Lake Eildon about 20 mins from Mansfield. Why is it the perfect place, because it has the best of both worlds! In summer you have the lake, great for boats, water ski’s, skiing, swimming, fishing & anything else you can think of. Then during winter its 40 mins drive to the nearest snow fields, Mount Buller.
We drove up there on the Friday night after work. Its a 3 hour drive from our place. We stopped on the Hume Highway for a quick bite for dinner with every other man & his dog. The Hume Highway is notoriously busy on long weekends as its the main drag between Melbourne & Sydney. Its always good to allow a little bit more time for any traffic.
The house is a typical holiday house but no central heating…… Now that’s something I’m not used to but the awesome views make up for anything the house is missing! He has a beautiful log fire heater there & its lovely to rug up shut all the doors & light the fire. The kids really enjoyed the fire & all wanted to help light it, needless to say no one was in sight when it was time to clean it!!
We were lucky enough to get an amazing weekend of weather with beautiful sunny days but very cold nights & mornings. It is the opening weekend of the snow season & they had not a skerrick of the white stuff up there. We were able to get out & about during the days & back to the house about 4pm to start the fire for the evening.
The first day we went into Mansfield for a wander around, they had the local market running. I bought that much local produce I could hardly carry it all. Every time I go to local markets I always try to buy the local produce as it assists the local farmers. This time round I bought plum port jam, chutney, passionfruit butter & a couple of salad dressings.
Mentally I think it makes my holiday last longer as every time I use the produce I think about the holiday we bought it on. It took us a few good hours to get round the market as we had some lunch from the Rotary Club food stall (money goes back into the community) & the kids got some lollies from the lolly stall.
The next day we decided to go for a drive towards Jamieson. We checked out the main street which consisted of a general store & a local pub, there seemed to be a few people around. We drove on to Kevington which consists of a few houses on the Goulburn River the famous Kevington Hotel. We turned back from there & went back to the Jamieson Brewery also located on the Goulburn River.
The river is pretty low this time of year so after sharing a tasting plate of the local craft beers we went for a walk down to the river.
The kids had a play in the playground & shared a bowl of wedges. It was a relaxing afternoon & I voted the Pale Ale my favourite closely followed by the Raspberry Ale. Craig preferred the Pilsner.
The next morning we got up & cleaned up the house & headed for home. We stopped at the Yea Bakery for some lunch like everyone else heading home from the ski fields. It was the opening weekend of the ski season here in Victoria & there wasn’t a flake of snow in sight. Not great for those up on the mountains but it made a more enjoyable weekend for us as it wasn’t bitterly cold.
