Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 113 (Saturday 23 April) - Andrew and Steve's Most Excellent Southern Highlands Adventure!

It has been tough lately getting time alone with my beautiful guy, what with him being in Bathurst 4 days of the week and social engagements begging us for time when we are together - all of which I love to make time for but which eat into the time we have together - so the idea of spending a day just with my guy way down in the Southern Highlands, far away from the madding crowd of Sydney, sounded like bliss....

..... and so it was, with us heading out of Sydney at 10 a.m. (a little later than the planned time of  8 a.m. but that was never realistic now was it on a holiday day?), after fueling up my car - it actually got to drive further than Marrickville Metro for once, as did I! - and grabbing the required travel lollies, screaming on the speed limit down the freeway for just over an hour before hitting lovely Mittagong first, where we had delicious bacon and avocado croissants at the Just Bite Me cafe.

After a fruitless search for an ATM, and grabbing some Easter gift bags at the local $2 shop, we hopped back into the car, drove into Bowral which, while lovely, seems a tad too contrived for my tastes. It has lots of book stores, and lovely home wares stores, but was nowhere near as postcard pretty as I remembered it. Still we had a lovely time wandering through the shops, checking out the beautiful autumn colours - especially, and quite appropriately given the fact that Anzac Day was just two days away, the ones around the Bowral cenotaph- and finding the local Vinnies, which was sadly closed, important because there was some kerfuffle a while back when Vinnies wanted to open in the main street and the Prues and Trues of the town put a stop to it lest poor people be seen as inhabiting their Highlands idyll! Steve was going to ask in one of the nicer home wares shops where it was - he can be such a cheeky larrikin at times - but gave up on that when we found it ourselves.

From the somewhat artificial surrounds of Bowral, we headed to Historic Berrima - we know it is because of the signs telling us so - which was just gorgeous. Parking outside the now closed Whitehorse Inn, the only place I could remember in Berrima (last visited by me way back when the freeway went through the town), we walked through a suite of beautiful antiques stores (including one that housed an enormous ornate French-made wooden wardrobe that would have looked fabulously imposing in my country home's entrance way had I possessed one!), home wares stores (including one that had a funky colourful candelabra that I just had to have... and which Steve bought for me for my birthday in November despite me assuring him I'd buy it, and which ended up as my Easter gift the next day stacked with eggs) and produce stores (got me some home made jams!) before lunch at the General Store, which was just delicious (duck and mushroom pie....YUM!). It was just glorious, romantic fun...

We finished off with a drive through Moss Vale, and a stop at the Mt Gibraltar lookout, which had views right across Bowral and Mittagong, views which were just breathtaking, before driving home via a street containing yet more autumn-infused trees. I had actually had a blast going down the freeway - so much fun to really drive hard occasionally. Only occasionally, of course, as I am not a massive fan of driving normally.

How very gay of them!

After crashing at my place for a little while, we headed out to Newtown for a delicious dinner at Sherpa Kitchen (scene of my birthday shindig 5 months earlier), and once again the service was delightful, the food superb (the Pakodas, which are chickpea flour coated pieces of cheese and vegetable, were divine), the conversation sparkling, and I reflected on how wonderful it was to be with my guy for a whole day, just the two of us, without anyone or anything else to get in the way.

A special wonderful day.