Ballarat to Gre Gre

Googlemaps and Melways fail us this morning and we do a massive blocky before we figure out how to get to the Ballarat Mining Exchange. Liz is waiting out the front when we get there and shows us around the building – which is stunning, old brick, full of beautiful archways, alcoves and a balcony.

the view from my place

The little fourpack dimmer-desk melts down when we are half way into bump in and over two hours four little monopacks arrive from various places (the uni, her majesties theatre etc) We have four white lights, two red and two blue and we manage to do something pretty effective for the whole show.


The kids are mostly holiday program crews and are wild and interactive and raucous. One girl screams at the top of her voice when Luke turns the shark postcard around. Others cling to the caution tape and don’t want to let Christy have it back.

Bump out is easy and we eat noodles in Ballarat and buy a mini-jack to rca lead because its what most sound desks seem to need.

Then we drive to Gre Gre on the outskirts of Marnoo (90ks’ from Horsham)

Luke pumps Bon Jovi through our new usb port to the car speakers and we drive through Avoca and St Arnoud howling along to ‘young guns’ and ‘in these arms’ and ‘bed of roses’ while the sun sets. Christy is collapsing with laughter in one corner, I am bouncing up past the speed limit each time I get carried away with the music and Luke dances in the middle, banging dramatically on the Melways and trying to predict the words he doesn’t know, to stunning effect.

Jacinta lives just out of Gre Gre with her family and paddocks full of horses. The little boys get around on a four wheeler motor bike and remember me as the dog from Kapow. There is so much food and friendliness and we sit around the kitchen discussing whether we’ll be able to rig the lights off a fence post or just lash a bit of two-by-four to a window frame or something…