Cafe #33: Holy Bread

Date: Sunday, 9 March, 2008, 11.00pm
Location: Pier Street, Altona

It has been a long day. I didn't wake up until 10.30, but today was the day to take my last Zone 2 train trip on my last monthly ticket left over from my yearly replacements, which Connex obligingly replaced with both zones even though my yearly was only Zone 1.

I decided to go to Werribee, the end of the line, near Port Philip Bay. The map in my 'pocket' UBD shows national park wetlands. When I got to Werribee, it turned out the bus I was planning to take to the wetlands doesn't run on Sundays, but after some pressing the driver suggested I walk to Werribee Park, where there is an open-range zoo and a mansion. He said he though it would be a 20-minute walk. It turns out the area is also home to the Victorian Natural Rose Garden and Shadowfax Winery and it takes more like an hour to walk to the park from the train.
So, yes, it was a very long walk, and hot, and while still getting there I was wondering if I'd be game to ask someone for a ride back. The mansion is beautiful. It is in the process of being restored and the library and drawing room, main bedroom (downstairs), the enormous kitchen and pantry, a couple of bedroom suites upstairs and the balconies were open for inspection. The hall-entranceway mosaic floor is very beautiful and the upstairs hall is a wood-floored salon/ballroom. A small ballroom. The mansion apparently had 19 bedrooms. It was bought in the 1920s and turned into a seminary, then bought back by the city for restoration. The original mansion is enormous and the Catholics built a whole 'nother mansion - an extension - which now serves as a Sofitel Hotel and Spa. The many areas of grounds include a farm and homestead, a patterned garden in front of the mansion, a pond and grotto, many swathes of green grass and pondy paths, a sculpture walk and river and forest trails. Everywhere people are allowed to picnic and play, which is very un-American. It is a very beautiful and impressive place and I'd love to go back - with companions and a car or bike.

I had a lovely honeycomb and chocolate slice at the mansion cafe that tasted just as chocolately and rich as it looked. By the time I got to the mansion I was starving. It's been a beautiful day. Hot but totally bearable and sunny and beautiful.

After exploring the mansion grounds and very much enjoying the sculpture, I took my tired feet to the massive rose garden, wth international varieties of roses. The garden wa designed in a 5-petal pattern, complete with a 'stem' path and small circular 'leaf' garden. Not that I noticed this pattern while walking thouhgh - I saw it on the map. Some of the roses smelled lovely , but I was too tired to enjoy the garden lesiurely. I started back for the train stations around 6.00 and kept hoping that someone in the fairly constant stream of cars might offer me a ride, but no.

Then, around 7.00, when I was still nowhere near the train station I got bit, once on each leg, by a dog. I was walking on a dirt road by a fallow field on the side of the road. The road to Werribee park has no pedestrian pathway and I thought it would be safer and more pleasant to walk away from the road. I had walked on the dirt road on the way to the park but as I was leaving the dirt to go back to the bitumen a dog came silently out of nowhere. It didn't bark, just trundled up, bit me and trundled off. Fortunately there were men at the house the field belongs to and I said, 'Excuse me, your dog just bit me, could you help me clean myself up?'

This is as far as I got with the blog at the cafe. I wrote notes about the cafe: 'Big open space, concrete floor, flat stone-piled pillars in the front. A brown couch facing outdoors, a couple more couches inside, poor service.'

I remember waiting almost an hour for my glass of red. I was about to leave when the young boy finally brought it to me.

The dog bite had a lasting impact. Aside from the ugly scars on my leg, I am now a bit hesitant when dogs run up to me. I never had any fear of them before. The man who owned the dogs was very unpleasant to me. He thought I was going to sue. Of course, I was polite and conciliatory to him, though a little annoyed when I explained that I wasn't going to sue him I just wanted my leg cleaned up. I wish I'd grow out of this misplaced niceness.

His father was much nicer and offered me a towel and a hose while we waited for his son to get disinfectant and bandaids. The old man drove me to the train station. I think he was Italian. He had a thick accent, but cannot remember now for sure where he said he was from.

The bites themselves didn't really hurt that much. More messy than anything. I was just profoundly sad at being so alone.

I was still bleeding a lot while sitting on the train so decided to disembark at the beach. I figured all that salt water would be a good disenfectant, and after such a stressful time I deserved an ocean.

I texted J, who advised that I should be fine and needn't go to the hospital.

A was lovely when I got home. She took pictures of my very black and blue and swollen calf and doused me lovingly with a disinfectant solution. She was the best substitute for Mom I could have had.

E wanted me to find out about justice and the law and whether the dog could be put down.
I did finally call the local council and a woman told me that if you trespass on somebody's property a dog can legally kill you.

I did get a tetanus shot in the end.