Traralgon: Store 61, Momo, and Grounded Paws Cat Cafe

When we were planning our long weekend holiday, I wanted to go somewhere in rural Victoria.  Sylvia wanted to go to the Grounded Paws animal rescue and cat cafe in Traralgon.  I was happy to go there but did not want to stay in Traralgon which seemed more suburban than my idealised vision of a country town.  So we compromised by staying at the beautiful gold rush town of Walhalla and visiting Traralgon on the way there and then driving back for another visit the next morning. 

This compromise worked well.  I loved the charming historic town in a green valley and Sylvia got to visit her cat cafe, op shops and nice restaurants in Traralgon.  Win win!

 

Store Sixty One Cafe, 61 Breed St, Traralgon 

When we arrived in Traralgon after over two hours of driving, it was good to stop for lunch at Store Sixty One.  (According to my friend Alison, this cafe has had a few name changes over the years.)  It was really busy on a Friday lunchtime.  There were no seats available inside but we were happy to eat on the front deck in the shade of the umbrella and enjoy the cool breeze.

We started with a cold drink.  Sylvia loved her iced soy matcha.  I had the passionfruit and orange kreol probiotic drink.  I expected it might be like the orange and passionfruit sparkling mineral water that used to be in many drinks cabinets and was a favourite of mine.  It was much less sweet but very refreshing.  I am noticing probiotic drinks are more and more available in cafes.

Sylvia went for the Happy Stack ($25.50) with hot cakes, butter, hash browns, maple syrup and strawberry compote.   She was able to have haloumi instead of the bacon.  I had the Breakfast Bowl ($27). It was a generous serve of buckwheat, seasonal greens, fresh avocado, roasted sweet potato, roasted cauliflower, confit tomato, pickled zucchini, edamame and miso dressing.  I opted not to have the poached eggs, but one of the protein choices was the zucchini and corn fritters which suited me very well.  So much good food with kudos to the crispy broccolini and beautifully roasted sweet potato.  While not the cheapest meal, it was excellent offerings from a country cafe.

Grounded Paws Animal Rescue Cat Cafe,  23 McMahon St, Traralgon

After lunch we went to Grounded Paws to spend time among the cats. At $5 for 30 minutes, this is the cheapest cat cafe we have visited (and we have been to quite a few).  It is actually a cat rescue, targeting cats that are at risk of being put down which welcomes visitors.  So the cats are well looked after and mostly friendly - as much as you can expect from cats!  

The photo above and the top photo show the whimsical presentation of a large warehouse.  The artwork has an Alice in Wonderland theme and is a work in progress. 

After we pay our entrance fee at the counter of the small little cafe that offers drinks and slices and gifts, we enter the first cat space.  It is a room for the kittens to keep them separate from the older cats.  These kittens are adorable.  Sylvia was very fond of a calico kitten called Peanut.  I was very taken by this gorgeous black kitten with white socks called Noel.

The main area for the older cats has lots of space and nooks and crannies.  There are lots of cat towers to hide in or, as in the case of the above cat (called Gherkin), to sit atop and stare with loooksthat are either judging us or terrified of us or both!

We had a lovely time with all the cats but the friendliest was a ginger tom called Robert.  I guess that makes him a bobcat!  He was my favourite.  You can see him sitting so patiently in this photo with Sylvia, loving her stroking his back.  Everywhere I was he seemed to be hanging out nearby ready for some attention.  He even was quite friendly with the other cats.

It was hard to photograph the large entrance to the warehouse that is covered in mesh so the cats can get fresh air without getting out.  The light from this entrance was glaring compared to the gloomy low light of the warehouse.  You can see Lenny's lighter natural light side and his darker warehouse side in the above photo.  He is on a large hamster wheel.  It was disappointing the cats didn't run on it. 

The cats loved this airy area where the warehouse met the outside world.  Sylvia's favourite - a black cat called Clarence - spent some time fiddling with the mesh trying to work out ways to escape.  He was a mellow cat who would stop to accept a pat but then go on his way doing his own thing.

You can see how much space there is in the photo of Robert.  Not all of the cats were so outgoing.  Quite a few of them liked to hide under the chairs and wooden pews as well as in the cat towers.  Below is a photo of a little tortoiseshell cat called Ariel under a fancy chair.

On our first visit, we were amused to watch the antics of Ariel who was avoiding the cat box of a couple who were adopting her. She ran up to the mezzanine where the table and chairs are (see top photo) and then ran out from there along a very high ledge.  The woman working there had to use a very long stick to nudge her back to the mezzanine.

Finally Ariel was shepherded into the cat doors to a smaller space where the staff look after food and kitty litter.  Even so it was taking quite a bit of time to coax her into the traveling box when we left.  When we came back for a second visit the next day, we happy to hear that she was sleeping soundly at her new home.

On our second visit I had a lot less desire than Sylvia to hang out with the cats so I stood and chatted to the volunteer on the desk.  It was interesting to hear more about the cafe.  I was sad hearing about the cats who were earmarked to be put down when their owners faced a change such as moving country or going into a nursing home.  It was especially sad to hear that one of the 12 month old kittens had been saved from being put down.  This made me really appreciate the work of the cafe in rehousing these cats.  If she could, Sylvia would have taken home this kitten called Peanut. But she is allergic to peanuts (ha ha).

Traralgon Farmers Market,  Kay Street

On our second visit to Traraglon we were delighted to find that the farmers market that is held on the fourth Saturday of the month coincided with our visit.  It was on a wide shady street with lots of trees along the nature strip.  We bought an amazing fig and black pepper baguette and mushroom arancini for our holiday kitchen.

We were able to resist much of the temptation but it is always fun to look around the stalls.  I got a laugh at the marshmallow stallholder's t-shirt that read "Whatever you do Marty, don't ever go to 2020".  (A Back to the Future joke!)  I also was amused by the caramel nut man who had a few cookie monster toys on display and showed us the one he had since he was a child.

MoMo, 103 Seymour Street, Traralgon

While in Traralgon, it was a good opportunity to catch up with my friend Alison who lives in country Gippsland.  We booked Italian restaurant, Momo, which was quiet when we arrived at 12 but got quite busy.  It was great to catch up with a university friend!

Alison had the orichiette with salmon.  Sylvia and I shared the Ricotta ravioli with peas, marinated cherry tomatoes, spinach, toasted pumpkin seeds, & lemon-butter sauce.  We had quite a few sides: Potato, roast garlic & smoked cheddar with aioli, House made beetroot hummus & dukkah, roasted tomato pesto, toasted pita & garlic & herb sourdough, and a Garden salad.  Together this was a really good meal.  Not cheap (our pasta was $30) but very delicious and satisfying.

Salvos and C2A Opportunity Shops

Sylvia had wanted to visit some op shops to hunt out some esoteric detritus.  She loves some second hand jewellery and clothing.  The C2A op shop (15 Seymour Street) was so cheap compared to Melbourne op shops.  I was delighted to be able to purchase 3 pairs of boots between us at $6 a pair.  I found a few other bits and pieces at the Salvos op shop 72 Princess Highway).  It wasn't as cheap but I really admired just how beautifully the shop was presented.

More posts on our holiday:

• Walhalla Witchery cafe and meals at holiday accomm...
• Walhalla accommodation and sightseeing

Walhalla Witchery cafe and meals at holiday accommodation

One of the fun parts of holidays is finding good and simple food in unexpected places.  On our long weekend in Walhalla we took along fruit and baked beans and good bread and were delighted with the gloomy other wordliness of the witches and their mystical accessories in the Walhalla Witchery cafe.

 

Another joy of staying in a strange holiday house is discovering the kitchen.  New enchanting crockery for serving food and  sweet little floral jars for storage.  

Of course, there is also much to love in the familiar.  We stopped at Calle Bakery in North Carlton to take a little of fine inner city baking to the bush.  The croissant wheels are so spectacular they were hard to resist.  Sylvia had the blueberry cheesecake and I had the Kinder bueno.  Next time I should get the cheese and spinach pastry rather than so much oozing custard.  Sylvia disagreed!

Far more to my liking was the magnificent loaf of spelt sourdough from Calle.  It had a crust to challenge any bread knife and a soft fragrant crumb.  We enjoyed it thick slices with baked beans and arancini.

I found a fig and black pepper baguette at the Traralgon Farmers Market.  It was even better than I imagined.  We felt so fancy eating slices of the fine baguette with cream cheese and a bunch of grapes on the side.  Sylvia liked a lick of jam as well but I was happy without it.

The Traralgon Farmers Market also yielded a wonderful arancini that I had with spelt bread, and a salad of carrot, red capsicum and cucumber with a simple dressing of balsamic vinegar and seasoning, with a glass of sparkling water to wash it down.  I took it to the verandah where I ate it looking over the lovely view and reading Frankie magazine.

I have never used an airfryer so the little green multifunction over was fun to try.  The first night I airfried the arancini was a disappointment.  They were less crisp than if I had just put them in an oven.  The next night I place the arancini on the highest shelf and left them in for longer.  They were so much better and crispier. 

Walhalla had a few places to dine but the one that appealed most was the Walhalla Witchery.  We almost sat outside on the verandah with the breeze and the views.  Then we saw inside.  The atmosphere was magical and mystical.

There was a note on the counter pleading patience from the customers because the they were understaffed and their coffee maker was a trainee.  Service was indeed slow as the holiday crowd seemed to challenge the staff.  But it was such a lovely place to sit and wait that we didn't mind too much.  And I liked the staff: the pretty young goth woman, the older man with the long beard and big sighs, and the gormless new guy with a large head of hair who looked unsure of himself at times but was friendly and working hard.

Sylvia had the cheese and tomato toastie. ($10.50)  I had the Greek focaccia.  Mine was filled with spinach, feta, sundried tomatoes, red onions, olive and tzatziki ($15).  We were both very pleased with our choices.

We stayed for scones with jam and cream accompanied by a soy capuccino for Sylvia and a pot of peppermint tea for me.  Herbal tea is just the thing while the presence of witches.  The scones were lovely and watching people's reactions as they entered the cafe was fun.

This corner with the fireplace, the raven, the tarot and punch and judy had some of the creepy vibes you expect in a Hammer Horror movie.

On my final morning I ate my breakfast in this outdoor area that overlooked the tree fern and a bread box in a tree repurposed as a bird feeder.  I had taken along my usual fruit, muesli and yoghurt for breakfasts.  Even in a strange town it was a wonderful way to start the day.

Walhalla accommodation and sightseeing

Walhalla was once a bustling gold rush town but today is a charming vision of leafy green trees and heritage buildings that delights tourists.  The small town nestles in the narrow valley of Stringers Creek.  It was a pleasure to visit over the long weekend.  We looked out upon this gorgeous green view from our holiday house high in the hillside. 

This town which is only a few hours drive east of Melbourne feels like a total break from the city.  It's isolation can be demonstrated by the fact that it was the last mainland town in the state to be connected to the electricity grid in 1998 and only got the internet in 2019.

Lee Manor (2 Right Branch Road) holiday house is over 100 years old and is both quaintly historic and comfortably modern.  For example, the kitchen has both a dresser of vintage plates and gorgeous green Smeg appliances.  It was my first time operating an airfryer for arancini from the Traralgon Farmers Market.

The loungeroom has a state of the art flatscreen tv but no wifi.  It has modern freestanding fireplace and sepia photos of Walhalla.  We rather liked the rocking lounge chair but I think I preferred the sofa looking out into the green views of the rotunda.  

These views could also be viewed by the verandah and from the porch outside the front door.  I was very fond of a little green parrot with a red breast that was rather friendly by the table and chairs outdoors.

The dining area of the living room had a wonderful view out to the tree fern just outside the window.  While the house had a great range of kitchenware, there is something lovely about the simplicity of a holiday home that does not need to accommodate every aspect of our lives.  

Life seemed even simpler without other houses about.  No noisy tv shows or the loud phone conversation that can intrude upon others' lives at home.

 The two bedrooms with the pretty quilts on the double beds were simple without wardrobes of clothes.  I love that a suitcase of clothes is enough on holiday.   We were tired when we arrived in the evening after a long drive, a stop at Traralgon and finally, when we arrive, we had a climb up a gravel driveway and then a flight of stairs to the front door.  I slept well in my holiday bed.

On our first full day we went to Traralgon but the second day was spent in Walhalla.  We started at the Walhalla Goldfields Railway.  It was quite busy so I was glad we booked.  I suspect that the end of the summer school holidays and a public holiday made it more popular than usual.  The vintage train appeals to trainspotters, history buffs and wildlife lovers.  I wonder where the suitcases in the pile at the station was found.  There was certainly no room nor need for luggage on the 5km journey to Thomson Station.

When the railway closed in 1958, some of the old steam trains went to Puffing Billy, Melbourne's iconic heritage tourist railway and are still in use today.  The Wallhalla railway now has diesel engines from around the 1960s. 

The carriages are charmingly historic, though I could not tell you the period.  Importantly the windows were open so that it was easy to admire and photograph the impressive passing scenery.

 

Here is a typical view.  (Actually it is quite a challenge to get a decent photo from a moving train and it took quite a lot of photos to get one like this which I really like.)  I have a fondness for tall thin eucalyptus trees and the shady fronds of the large tree ferns.  It was also a bit frightening to look up to the steep drop was from the road to Walhalla.  Best not to think about it when driving!

One of the lovely views from the train was the road bridge across the Thomson River.  On the way over to Thomson Station, a red car was parked and people waved to us.  The sun shone and the world was beautiful.

At Thomson Station we had 15 to 20 minutes to buy gifts, look at historic artifacts and admire the red engine.  It was just as well it was a mild day of about 24 C so it was very pleasant just hanging out there.  (Thank goodness we weren't there the next day when it was 36 C in Walhalla.)

We also had time at the station to walk down to admire that view of the road bridge and view the railway track running over the Thomson River.  Then we were told to board the train to ride back to Walhalla.  It was wonderful to have a second chance to enjoy the bush scenery.

Back at Walhalla Station we could check out more history of the station.  I would have loved more time to look at the displays.  This railway has a sad story.  Walhalla was difficult to get to.  Even today it is a long winding drive to get the heart of the mountains.  The townspeople lobbied for a railway and finally the government completed building a railway line into Walhalla in 1910.  By the the gold boom was in decline and the railway was mostly useful for transporting buildings and mining equipment out of the town.  As the flyer above demonstrates, it was also used in the mid 20th Century for happier times of Back to Walhalla days that reunited the townsfolk who used to live here.

Near to the railway along the Main Road towards the centre of town is the Walhalla Cemetery.  It is an historic cemetary of graves up the hillside.  To even reach the gate was a stroll uphill.  It is quite picturesque with the old tombstones surrounded by bush.  I came to Walhalla in about 1992 with my university friend Kathleen and this is one of the main memories I have of that visit.  I am very glad I was finally able to return to the town and the cemetery.

This grave is typical of many stories you see here.  John Parry is buried here aged 55 years old in 1892 surrounded by his two children: John aged 17 months in 1871 and Elizabeth aged 25 months in 1872 and his grandchild John aged 3 months.  The mortality rate here was high.  There were many infant deaths and young adult deaths.  Mining life here was a hard life and children died of diseases that vaccinations have almost eradicated today.  Even now, the idea of having to evacuate the town from fire or flood along the narrow winding road seems frightening.  It must have been an effort to get the coffins to the graves.

In this photo you can see how steep the cemetery is.  I felt like a mountain goat as I nagivated the narrow dirt paths around the graves.  They are not clustered together in the way graves are in city cemeteries.  Most are so old it was not easy to read them.  A few gravestones were wooden and not in great condition.

Once I left the cemetery, I went home to get Sylvia and then we walked along the Main Road past heritage sights to the Walhalla Witchery for lunch in a most unusual cafe.  More about that in a future post!

Then we went next door to the Walhalla Old Post and Telegraph Office.  It was a wonderful museum with insights into both the history of communications and the history of the town.

 

I loved looking over all the communication paraphernalia.  Items such as the exchange and the morse code machines were reminders of when communications were conducted by central public services like this.  The collection of old telephones ranging from the above wall phone with the speaker to the handsets with a rotary dial and curly cord I grew up with to various iterations on the mobile phone.

Out the back was the residence which was lived in by the last post mistress Doreen Hannan who started working there in 1928.  After the post office transferred to the General Store in 1962, she lived there until 1988.  Following this, the building was acquired by the State Government.  It is a really attractive display of a home from the last century,  It feels like it was like Doreen left it, well looked after but a bit worn around the edges.
 

Sylvia and I particularly liked the model of the Rotunda.  Like the railway, the museum is mainly run by volunteers.  I enjoyed a chat with a volunteer about how Walhalla had changed with the arrival of electricity to have more holiday houses and how there aren't many volunteers there days with dwindling numbers of permanent residents.  I would have talked more if not interrupted by Sylvia's string of purple beads breaking.  After picking up as many as we could find, we left.

We walked back to our holiday home.  On the way we stopped at the Corner Store.  It had lovely gifts and souvenirs to buy.  Much of it was not cheap but was delightful to browse.  Above are some old tins and some candles in the shapes of ice cream sundaes.  The store also had a small historic display and holds ghost tours so there are some spooky gifts available.

Finally we cam to the rotunda and Star Hotel which were at the base of the hill where we were staying.  It would have been nice to try the meals at the couple of pubs but we weren't around long enough.  I did not fancy looking at the cricket field.  A friend told me that it was so hilly that they had to flatten a hill to get enough space for a cricket oval and it was quite a steep walk up there.  We had enough uphill walks to our holiday home.

We returned there for our last night.  The sun set upon our holiday and in the morning we got up for one last breakfast overlooking the rotunda in the park before putting away the last of the dishes and packing the last of our bags.  Then we put our bags on the pulley system so we didn't have to lug them down all the steps and sloping gravel path.  Did I tell you about the mechanised pulley system with a large square tub to load the luggage and send it down the hill?  It was brilliant!  Then we packed the car and headed along the picturesque winding road one more time as we drove home.

More posts on the holiday to come.