Balmy balmy Beechworth

I'd heard Beechworth was pretty, but it really is.  The town itself reminds me a little of Maffra, but a bit bigger and with more older buildings.  Our camp site was just out of town.  It was a nice spot, in the bush and there were even koalas in the trees around us.  God those things make a racket.  At night they sound like crazy bush pigs.

The koala hanging out near our camp.

Our camp was nice and with the fantastic weather it was really not fun packing up to go home.  But we had a good time.  Checked out the festival, a bit of the town and had a bit of a paddle round in some waterfalls.  But I think the consensus was that we definately have to plan another trip up here; maybe bring some bikes for the rail trails and check out more of the national parks.

Bbq-ing in our idyllic surrounds

 The Beechworth Celtic festival was a bit of fun.  There were markets, stages for music and dancing and a classically country, underwhelming street parade.  But it was good, at the end of the parade half of the pipe band hung around in the street and kept playing for the small crowd who gathered round them.  And it just happened that when they finished up we realised we were standing right next to a nice old pub.  So we went in for a beverage or two then stayed to watch the bands they had on.  It was a pretty good night, the bands were good and we walked outside after to discover the one taxi in Beechworth was free and waiting for us.

The Celtic festival street parade.

A bag pipe or two is a prerequesite for any street parade.

So my original motivation for the drive to Beechworth was to deliver a postcard that I got from the pirate's postbox in Post Office Bay in the Galapagos.  I had been carrying this postcard for siz months, intent on hand delivering this postcard as the author of the card, someone called Carly, wanted.

I also decided to add my own postcard for delivery so that if there was no-one home, they would know where the postcard came from once I'd left it in the letter box.  My postcard was from Macchu Picchu and told the story of all the places that Carly's card had travelled between leaving the Galapagos in May and arriving in Beechworth in November.

So Julie and I pulled up outside the address on the postcard and after a little confusion about the name of the street, we actually figured out we were outside the right address.  We rang the door bell and heard a voice call 'yep?' through the screen door, coming from the lounge chair a few metres away.  I spoke through the screen door asking if Mick or Bev were about.  'Yep' was the reply.  I continued speaking through the screen door, telling the Mick who was still watching the telly what I was there for. 'oh yeah?' came the reply of disinterest. 

Old Mick didn't look like getting out of his lounge chair anytime soon, so I invited myself in.  Opened the screen door, went in and gave him the card.  He was sitting in his chair with a little fluffy dog.  He had a bit of a look and gave me another 'oh yeah,' and 'yeah, we'll tell Carly when she rings.'  Mick asked what we were doing in Beechworth.  I said we thought we'd come up for the Celtic festival. 'well, you better hurry - you'll miss the parade.' he said.  So we left Mick and the little white fluffy thing that may have been the infamous 'Monster' on Carly's postcard and went off to see the parade.

So the whole postcard delivery was not as exciting as I'd hoped.  I think maybe if Bev had been there it would have been different.  I would have liked to know what Carly & Mark were doing in the Galapagos; whether they loved it as much as me and whether they'd delivered any postcards they'd found in the postbox.  But I guess it must have been a bit odd for Mick to have a couple of randoms turning up on his doorstep and talking about postcards from the other side of the world.

The postcards I had to deliver

The content of the postcards.