Ashcombe Maze & Lavender Gardens

More pics from Melbourne!

On we drove to Ballarat and visited the Sovereign Hill, which is an outdoor museum where you get to see live presentation of how gold is found, processed blablabla in Ballarat. The admission fee isn't cheap but if you look at the entire recreation it's not difficult to understand how much maintenance is needed to keep the place running nicely.

I've visited the place in winter 2008. Honestly, for places like this, it's worthwile to see it once but not another time. We decided to go again because his family hasn't been there before.

Wearing a winter jacket during summer =.=

And exploring the museum took up pretty much the whole day. Can't remember what else we did.

The next day which was also the last day we had the car, we drove around the Mornington Peninsula. We didn't get to do much since we had only one day and most places close at 5.

We wanted to visit a strawberry picking farm but it was not opened due to bad weather conditions. So we visited the Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Gardens which was beautiful! It was quite fun too because once you get in you'll be given tasks and challenges. Of course it is completely up to you whether or not you choose to accept and do them. Honestly, it'll be a lot more interesting to do it than to only stroll along the entire place looking at trees and flowers.

The moment we entered we were asked to look for little gnomes and fairies in the place. If we could find all of it the reward was a lolly. The whole point is of course not to get a lolly but the fun of exploring every coop and corner, having an objective while enjoying the beauty of nature.

Yes, this is a maze, like the one you see in Harry Potter.

Apparently the Ashcombe Maze is one of the oldest existing maze in Australia.

Lavender! I've never seen a freshly grown lavender like this in my entire life!

There's this Rose Maze which is one of the oldest circular rose mazes in the world. The challenge here is to get to the centre of the maze.

Then we reached the most beautiful part of the garden, the Lavender Labyrinth!

I was too excited when I saw the lavender and couldn't wait to take a picture with the shrubs. And I accidentally tripped over the fencing =.= If you look at my hand you can see dirt. Wk quickly came over and took a picture before helping me up lol.

Speaking of falling down, I don't know why I always face misfortunes whenever I am in Melbourne.

The first time I was at Melbourne in 2007, I fell down from a chair in the public while laughing too hard. In 2008, I had ketchup splattered all over my face because I didn't know how to open that shit, yes in the public. In 2009, I slipped and almost landed with my butt in the public again but I was lucky that Wk was right next to me and I managed held on to him. But the public still saw me slip.

This time when I was there, I tripped and fell onto the floor hard when I was trying to chase some seagulls away while we were having a break at Seal Rocks. Oh how could I have forgotten about this?! Some fucking stupid/inconsiderate Chinese couple who were sitting near us fed them for their own amusement. They were throwing potato chips everywhere and laughing at the seagulls fighting for it.

It's totally fine if they want to be stupid but please do it far away without affecting others. When they fed the seagulls, more and more flew over and surrounded them and at the same time, surrounded us as well and I find it terribly irritating cos seagulls are not afraid of people, they will snatch your food and they are very noisy. That stupid couple then moved away to another table when the amount of seagulls became intimidating, but the seagulls won't leave just because the couple left. The seagulls knew we had food so they stayed and stayed irritating as everrrr. And that is why I got really annoyed and wanted to chase them off before landing on my elbow and knees, which of course still did the trick but in a more painful way T_T STUPID CHINESE COUPLE GROW SOME BRAINS LAH.

By the way everyone, PLEASE DON'T FEED THE SEAGULLS. If you want to do it, do it without affecting the people nearby. Your consideration is very much appreciated. Thank you.

Ok sorry I digressed. Then, fell another time at the Lavender Labyrinth.

=.=

We had lunch at the cafe inside the garden where of course, they serve lots of lavender infused dishes such as lavender scones... ... ok that's all I know wtf. There's also a home made lavender ice cream but we didn't try that. The lavender scones were alright, I still prefer their original unflavoured scones.