Winter suuuckkks.
Datelines
We completed the adventure of traveling to the end of each train line to have a date this month. The Alamein train dropped us in a suburban neighborhood and we had to walk some distance to get to the main street for our kebab and bakery sweet. It was a nice day.
I thought we only had the Alamein line to complete out of the 24 possible end points for our datelines this month, but DH2 came home last week and said he’d been studying the train map as he was waiting for his train and discovered a line that went beyond Frankston. I argued that it couldn’t be true, and wondered if it was a V-line. He disagreed and showed me. Sure enough, there was a line that went out to Stony Point. All righty then, it was time to go to Stony Point. The trip out was 2 hours and ended where the French Island Ferry launched. Upon disembarking, we discovered there was no infrastructure there. There was a camp ground and an office with a SNACK sign out front. Once we discovered that trains only arrived/departed every 2 hours and we didn’t want to get stuck there with nothing to do, we grabbed a bag of chips (crisps in AU) and jumped on the same train back to the city after only 15 minutes in Stony Point. We can say we went and now we are truly done.
I’m really glad we did this. It was a way to have experiences for all train lines so now when we go somewhere and have to take a line, we have memories for that line. We got to explore places that we never would have otherwise.
Townhall Side Quests
Kensington Town Hall – City of Melbourne 8/6
A perfect town hall. Still functioning as a town hall with art inside and cannons outside
Dandenong Town Hall – City of Greater Dandenong 8/13/26
There was a theater kitty-corner from the town hall looked like maybe it had once been the town hall. This modern building even had a casino in it.
Footscray Town Hall –City of Maribyrnong 8/18
There was an old part with modern annex. The annex reminded me of the architecture at the courts building. There was local art inside with a staircase and astained glass window. It was a functional town hall.
Glen Eira Town Hall (formerly Caulfield City Hall) – City of Glen Eira 8/26/26
It was an operational town hall with a large gallery of local artists. There was a great oval staircase and art in foyer.
Photography
Happily, we had some sun for our excursions. Here is street photography, a few reflections from the Yarra, and some Fibonacci grid attempts.
Things I did
I recently read Jenny Lawson’s “How to be OK when nothing is OK” and started following a couple doodle artists on Instagram from Lawson’s recommendation. After drawing some doodles for a couple months, I realized I could do the doodle on my nails. I had nail polish pens that I used to doodle my nails. I loved them. A couple days later, I realized they reminded me of the stained glass windows in the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia.
- Visited the zoo to see the snow leopards.
- Went to the Lightscape at the Botanic Garden for the 2nd year in a row.
- Did a weekend trip to Port Arlington. It was cold and rainy. The dinner at Scotsman Hill winery was phenomenal.
- We had our bi-annual window washers greet us at 6:30am.
- Enjoyed the annual Now or Never experience, sponsored by the City. I love these large scale light and sound installations.
- Saw a great photography exhibit at Brighton Town Hall, featuring Ansel Adams and Max Dupain.
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