Sadly, the Big Chill must end and after brekkie we pack, load into Jim and Jenni’s car to return to Williamstown — leaving David Williams to burn trash and find the Tiger snake, and Helen to catch a bus to Melbourne to attend a concert with her sister — get a few miles down the road and turn around because David forgot the little notebook he keeps, which makes this riveting blog possible.

We stop at Fish Creek, a tiny community with several artists’ workshops and galleries, and stop at Andrew McPherson’s Ride the Wild Goat. He’s a former furniture maker who’s turned to making found art. Example: An old, rusted piece of copper cladding for a rain barrel that was etched by the barrel’s standing water, leaving a white stripe that looks like the surf of ocean waves in the distance at night, the copper mottled with age into various colors and shapes like people looming in crepuscular light. Think Turner at his darkest.

The drive back takes about three hours after Fish Creek. We talk quite a bit about the politics of aborigines over the past 20-30 years. Our friends tell us information about Jeff Clark, our guide in the Grampians, and about the current state of assimilation of aborigines that was new to us and put a strongly nuanced and different take than that given us by Jeff.

After a few drinks at their house, we all go to a nice local Indian restaurant — it’s a bring your own bottle, so Cynthia and Jenni dive into a Prosecco they bring while Jim and I have Kingfisher beer — and we sleep like logs.

Another day back in Melbourne in Oz.