Blazing Stump Motel and Suites<\/a>. (K: Joe keeps calling it the Blazing Saddle Motel.) <\/p>\n\n\n\nAs we got near the end, the smoke started to close in. By the time we checked into the hotel the area was definitely smokey. (K: we checked at the reception to make sure we weren’t in a danger area, the fires are about an hour and a half from here.) After putting our bags in the room we decided to have a look at Lake Hume which is a 10 minute drive away. So back in the car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we did find places to stop for the lake it painted an eerie picture as the lake level looks quite low, it really being a reservoir, you could see many of the trees which have been submerged, dead and poking up from the water, and the smoke haze surrounding them. Whether due to the smoke or something else, there was very little bird life around. So we decided to head back to the hotel room to have a light snack while we waited for the local recommended restaurant to open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just before 6pm we made our way to the Blazing Stump Hotel restaurant which turned out to be a new experience all in itself! The place is very large and was almost fully packed with groups, mainly families with lots and lots of children. They gave us a menu and a table number and a wave in the general direction of where the table was. Once we picked what we wanted to eat we had to go to the ‘Order Here’ bar and pay. The queue for this went past our table and was varying lengths, but never no one queuing, the entire time we were there. You then get a ticket and a buzzer for when you’re meal is ready to be collected. You have to go to the main bar (different area) to get drinks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While all this was going on they were holding raffles for various things (K: It was member’s night and there was a ‘here’s how to join’ speech. At least I think that’s what he was saying, the place was very loud!) As we ate our meal minibusses were arriving dropping off more people – most of these were large groups! And everyone knew everyone else. Management was opening extra spaces (so the function rooms) and seating people there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After dinner we fled to the quiet of our room. Tomorrow we’re probably having lunch\/dinner at one of the local breweries in the area. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Set the alarm and packed up the evening before. The idea was to get out of Melbourne as early as we could, avoiding traffic. We managed fairly well even though Google threw a few curve balls again. We left Melbourne by a different bridge with some interesting architectural bits. We passed out of the city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[25],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4T97-4199","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4208,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2020\/01\/05\/final-road-trip\/","url_meta":{"origin":4199,"position":0},"title":"Final Road Trip","date":"Sunday, 5 January 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was driving, just driving pretty much! We woke up to a bit less smoke - not sure if it was the towel or the a\/c but slept better. Up and over cups of tea we worked out a safe route - we wanted to spend a couple of days\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4189,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/30\/to-melbourne\/","url_meta":{"origin":4199,"position":1},"title":"To Melbourne","date":"Monday, 30 December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Lazy start to the day, up late sorted and out. Drove up to where we'd had dinner and found a 2 hour parking lot and went to have breakfast. Wandered back by the library which had some nice sculptures, though Joe wouldn't let me go in. Decided to head into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2006\/01\/11\/home\/","url_meta":{"origin":4199,"position":2},"title":"Home","date":"Wednesday, 11 January 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, we're home. We left Christchurch on Monday morning in the pouring rain, flew to Auckland where we spent 6 hours sitting in the airport, then had that long flight home. Stopped in Melbourne again and Dubai but didn't do anything interesting. Was going to update yesterday but the internet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":227,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/26\/amsterdam-kathleens-version\/","url_meta":{"origin":4199,"position":3},"title":"Amsterdam – Kathleen’s version","date":"Tuesday, 26 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Slept in as we weren't in any hurry. We had decided on the late breakfast, which was a champagne breakfast at 10.15. The early breakfast on Monday was mad as that's the one everyone goes to so they can get into the park bright and early. Got up late, got\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/30\/first-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":4199,"position":4},"title":"First day","date":"Wednesday, 30 November 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi all! We are here. Arrived yesterday afternoon - over an hour late but we arrived. The flight was long - very long. During most of the flight had no idea what time it was or even what day it was. Knew where we were, could see that on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":408,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/14\/home-again-4\/","url_meta":{"origin":4199,"position":5},"title":"Home Again","date":"Saturday, 14 August 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Had breakfast then loaded up the car and headed out. Drove out of York toward Hull and the Humber Bridge. Cloudy day with some sunshine, so the drive over the Humber was nice. We then headed on to Lincoln. Got to Lincoln and drove around the cathedral looking for parking.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4202,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4199\/revisions\/4202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}