We take a walk through the small village of Latrobe with its historic streetscape dating back to the 1800s. It could be a Sunday – most of the shops close in the afternoon and there is a rather deserted feel to the main street. There are some attractive older-style houses and shops many with verandahs over the pavement, others with elaborate façades. We spend some time browsing Helen’s favourite shop, Reliquaire. It’s small frontage hides a maze of rooms crammed with a cornucopia of the weird and wonderful as well as the more mundane and ordinary. From puppets, painted dolls, teddies, gollies and whole room devoted to Betty Boop to toys, dressing up clothes, animatronics, ‘the tardis’. electronic games, jewellery, clothes, architectural salvage and English garden furniture and much more besides. It’s a browser’s paradise but we manage to tear ourselves away to meander on to an interesting shop-cum-cafe for scones and cream and another cholesterol-laden iced chocolate or, in Andy’s case, coffee. We decide to give the Australian Axeman’s Hall of Fame, which is not some gruesome memorial to an axe murderer but a museum celebrating famous lumberjacks, a miss.
Jenny and Kevin, long-standing friends of Helen and Adrian, come over for dinner and we have a delicious meal, lots of wine and entertaining conversation. Kevin is a pharmacist and he advises taking vitamin B1 for the prevention of mosquito and other insects bites. Apparently it comes out through the pores and acts as a repellent. We’ll give it a go and see how effective it is when we get to Darwin.
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