Today is Stan's Birthday! Happy Birthday, Stan from me to you with love!!

What a quaint and happy little place we found for last night's stay. I think I will always remember Ruthergen, Victoria. We actually stayed in the area until about 2 pm today, getting to know the inn-keeper a bit, learning about her young family and how it happened that they left the city and moved out here to Rutherglen. We toured the little town and visited recommended wineries. We also went back to last night's restaurant to get the name of the dessert we had -- it's called Affogatto. This is a little 3-part dish consisting of one shot of espresso and one shot of Frangelico dumped over one shot of rich vanilla ice cream. It is really, really good! Invokes really nice sleep!

Observing my comments about all the wineries we have visited, one might think we planned our Australian trip deliberately and primarily as a wine-tasting tour, but that is not the case. It is purely coincidental that Australia is saturated with vineyards and wine-makers, and their climate is perfect for many varieties of grapes. High quality wineries are extremely plentiful and the diverse climate supports many different varietals. There are over 800 wineries in Victoria and even more in South Australia. And we have not even made it yet to New South Wales or Queensland.

Today Ruth, owner and chief do-everything of our inn said we must try the Liquid Gold, a fortified Muscat, at Campbell's Cellar Door and then of course, we had to follow through with the recommendations we received last night from Stefan to visit Pfeiffer Wines . . . after all he gave us a bottle of Pfeiffer Classic Rutherglen Topaque. Both cellar doors were great. Just as Ruth said, Campbell's Liquid Gold is absolutely delicious. Then we were standing at the taster's counter at Pfeiffer Wines just beginning a taste tour when a man walked in on the other side of the bar. He obviously looked like he knew something about the place and appeared to have just come in from hands-on work in the vineyards. Who knew if he was a vineyard worker or the owner, but he was knowledgeable and fun to talk with. An hour of great conversation later, we learned he was in fact the owner, Chris Pheiffer. His wines are really nice -- his fortified is unreal! His winery, set along the Murray River is rustic but authentic Australian. After tasting, we went down to the river to feed the turtles and carp. I got a few nice photos of the landscape and the Murray River there. Again, this was another unique event that could not be deliberately arranged - just good karma.

Then--we faced a 4-hour drive to Goulburn. We spent the drive time looking for kangaroos and trying to pronounce the passing towns and streams with names like Howlong, Wabgaratta, Wodonga, Mullengandra, Little Billabong, Gundagai, Jugiong, and finally, Goulburn, where we are eating and sleeping tonight. As we drove northward, the landscape changed. The land became a little more green and much more hilly. We felt ourselves gaining altitude. It is disappointing that I cannot capture the beauty or the vastness of the land in photos. The best way I hope describe what I see is that you get a real of sensational enormous space -- huge rolling hills and wide valleys, horizon to horizon capped by a brilliant blue sky. You feel just a bit more close to Heaven.

At this very moment at our hotel in Goulburn, I'd like capture the sound of the birds outside our door. They are a bunch of vocal and happy creatures. They put me in a happy spirit. I just hope they shut the chattering down in a couple of hours and go nite-nite like Stan and I will no doubt want to do soon.