The next morning (Monday) we went for coffee. I was fine with it except he wanted a treat! Then one thing led to another and he ended up ordering an apple strudel.

That started it! He started telling me about all the strudels he had whilst travelling overseas on his bike.

And that I need to hop on my bike and go for rides every day or at least 3 times a week to build up my muscles so we could travel together.

I was like if you want me to practise you need to take me riding more often. And ride with me not go so far ahead!

He rebutted with the same line. But if I ride with you you’d never improve! I need to keep pace!

Anyhow the tears came rolling. All weekend we didn’t ride as the tracks were too hard for me to ride. I’ve only got a hybrid bike and they were all mountain biking tracks.

Not only that they were the difficult ones with elevations. Even he had difficulties. He told me he nearly fell.

I told him if I wasn’t committed I wouldn’t have bought a bike or gone riding with him. Trying to get better.

After coffee he left me with the caravan unhitched to go into Bendigo to sort out his rental.

I had 3/4 of a working day to kill! I walked around the Mill market until lunch and went into town in search of food.

The two delightful men in their Bentley recommended Togs but they had no seating.

Luckily for me I found Origini. An Italian restaurant only opened for lunch on the weekdays only.

I had their meatballs with bread and Parmesan. I must have misread their menu thinking it was pasta with a meatball sauce .

After lunch I went to visit the historic Buda house. Named after Budapest!

You have to pay a small entry fee. I thought it was quite interesting. The family that lived there was quite artistic with some of their works still on display.

Home

As it was getting on I walked back to the Mill to wander around their galleries. It was there that Mr Wanderer rang me. He was about 45 minutes away.

I was like take your time. I’ll go across the road to the Botanical Gardens.

How cool is this?

It’s like a hidey hole!

The fountain over looked the lake. It turned out when they say hard labour! It’s hard labour. The prisoners took months to dig out that lake!

I love the plantings. So colourful! It’s not too bad for a Botanical Garden. Not a royal one since it’s not bestowed the royal bit by a visiting royal.

Although it was a hot day by the time I got back to the caravan the temperature has dropped. I knew he’d be hankering for a cuppa thus boiled a pot of water.

We ended up driving to Kyneton to go riding. He must have felt guilty. We rode around the town for an hour and since not much was opened we ate at the RSL. (Returned and Service League)

I was pleasantly surprised my pasta tasted so good! I had in my mind the RSL was where old tired men went to have their meals slapped on their plates.

Guess I was wrong!