When the Cheshire emerges...

The beautiful Golden Highway on a frosty winter morning.

Driving along this road in the strongest of summer and winter days, it's such a stunning journey because there's a real mix of terrain and not a lot of stops breaking it up.

I went to Newcastle for the second time last weekend. It was for a number of things: needing to get a hat pin from lack of looking last time (my tourist buy everywhere I visit), the silent film festival making its way through, catching up with whoever I knew was around, and going to get my car checked. That last one didn't happen because it turns out that there wasn't a Citroen service specialist there after all. Thankfully all seems to be relatively well.

I had more time to shop than I would've liked - it's so easy to spend there when Hunter Street is a clearance/vintage haven. Love. But I also got to the screening of silent film Tol'able David (1921) which I thought was adorable. And then I won the door prize before catching a bus for free with four minutes to spare. A good day. A nice brunch with my friend before he gave me an extended tour of the coastline rounded off a good weekend on the Sunday. Also did the most touristy thing you can probably do in Newcastle and went inside Fort Scratchley which was cool. Only place in Australia from where a gun was once fired at threatening naval craft...

Here's a small look at what I got up to. I was lucky I had beautiful weather when I got there, it was actually WARM on the Saturday. No jacket! I've learned quickly living regional that whenever there's heavy fog/frost in the morning, it always turns out to be a beautiful sunny day.

Greater Union King St cinemas. I'm so glad these type still exist! It's so old skool!

Forts built at Merewether for a feared WWII invasion

The 80-pounder gun inside Fort Scratchley

You can't really stop along my favourite part of the drive, but this was a nice place for a photo stop on the way home

My door prize - FairTrade coffee? Tea? Charlie Chaplin doco on DVD? WIN.