Clunes & Book Town 2008

P and I took a brief pause in our lives last weekend and headed up to Clunes for their Book Town weekend. We stayed at a delightful B&B called Rock Brook...

The road led us to...

...the front gate and winding driveway...

...which took us right to our front door...

... and from the moment we walked in...


... we felt welcomed...


and cozy...

...from warmth of the open fire prepared and stoked for our arrival...

We looked forward to a snug night in with a delicious homecooked dinner served to us...

... followed by a good night sleep in a warm and comfortable bed...

....after the sun went down....

We went for a walk just before dusk accompanied by the smallest of the farm dogs - a little Jack Russell called Tilly... She was one of four dogs who kept everything, and I suspect everyone in order... While P went off madly photographing everything that moved... I stayed close by and was saddened to see this large tree lying on its side like some majestic fallen beast ...

P and I were impressed with the service we were offered at Rock Brook and we have already thought about a return visit when we have more time to enjoy a few days rather than an overnight stay. We would like to see more of the farm itself and explore a little further the local sights... As a B&B I can't recommend Rock Brook enough....

On the Sunday 'we did' Clunes - and we seemed to walk around every major building that they had viewing books and more books and yet more books... The idea of the whole town given over to second hand books and book dealers is not a new one but one that could restore life back to this fading yet historic gold town... I felt like I was walking in the footsteps of history as we moved around the town streets and I think the locals were more than a little amused as they were decended upon by all the 'out of towners'... We were led to believe that all accomodation locally was booked out and that on the Saturday alone there was a population swell of 4000 visitors to Clunes... P took more photos of the township than I did but this one building caught my camera's lens....

We were lucky enough to stumble into the Bowling Club which was home for the weekend to the visiting writers among them John Marsden and Alexis Wright...

I was fortunate enough to buy and have signed Alexis Wright's Carpentaria... She seemed a very genuine and down to earth woman who spoke passionately about the writing of Carpentaria...

Between us P and I bought four books... Three were second hand and the new edition of Carpentaria... I think all up it cost us about $35 in total... Would we go again next year???? Not sure - I think that given that this was only its second year Book Town could be only limited by its imagination I can only guess that there will be some deep 'after the event' discussions... Personally I think it has got the potential to just get better....

All in all it was a lovely weekend and as P and I were driving home -especially when we hit the city traffic - we promised ourselves we would give ourselves more 'pauses' in the coming months...