SBF1GPMB Day2 - Stud Ranch to St Kilda

Showering and slipping on the fresh underpants I thought I'd never get, I got to have a look at where I was. I was in rural England all pruned rose bushes and apple trees. Went back inside and found a fridge loaded with steak, bacon, and eggs. Did you know men are 74% protein? Yes. The recently restored century-old homestead was a marvel, no small part due to being one of the properties of a construction tycoon but you had to admire that it wasn't bulldozed to make way for a GWTW mostrosity. The 500 acre cattle and sheep stud has a stockman and a gardener and has trees planted to shield unsightly tanks. More BMW showroom than cattleyard, I could only fault it for the lack of a giant H on the helipad. The old shed had carefully chosen old machinery in it, rather than on its last legs Dodge fuel truck. Impressive but eventually a bit unsettling like the $80,000 cloned breeding ram you see down there. Was it real? Were we, ourselves, being made comfortable as country boys on what some future race might have imagined we would like? Comfortable. Comfortable, for what? It was obvious, love slaves.



No apparently not, so we jumped in our Toyota Hi-Ace, and headed back to Melbourne, stopping at the Geelong KFC across from the Ford Engine Plant. Over over over the big bridge, then to the hotel where it wasn't us who broke the hotel parking shutter. A few beers in the lounge, off to Saint Kilda, thin crusty pizzas that are still a novelty back west, The Prince of Wales pub for Guinesses to be complimented on my corduroy jacket by a nice man in a suit, 10 minutes in the Esplanade hotel before the consensus was no, then taxi to elsewhere. Hello Melbourne.