Drive to Melbourne with a game of golf at The Growling Frog

2nd February 2018

We departed from Glenrowan at 7.30am, waving goodbye to ned Kelly on the way out.

Todays plan is to have a game of golf along the way at a golf course North of Melbourne called The Growling Frog. It is located in Yan Yean and is out in the country a bit, but is in a rapidly growing residental area of Melbourne and should eventually be in the middle of suburbia.

It took us just over 2 hours to get there from Glenrowan, slowed a little by a lot of roadworks.

The golf course is impressive. It was designed by Graham Marsh and as far as we could find out, has been open for about 8 years. It is in excellent condition and is a good test of golf.

Nice modern clubhouse, and lots of bunkers

Carole sizing up a put

This is the first of a series of games we intend to play over the next few weeks, so naturally, it has already turned into a tournament. 

Both of us found the course tough in places and the greens were tricky. The final result for the day was a draw, so we now need to move on to our next scheduled round in Launceston on Monday 5th Feb to continue to competition.

Whilst it would be possible to walk the course, to get around in reasonable time you need a cart. The course was not that busy and we completed our 18 holes in 3.5 hours.

After lunch in the clubhouse, we were back in the car headed for Melbourne where we have booked a motel in Parkville to give us a short run in the morning down to Port Melbourne to catch the ship.

Good Location and comfortable rooms at a reasonable price

An afternoon walk down Flemington Road to stretch our legs resulted in the find of a suitable restaurant for dinner tonight. It is "attached" to the Children's Hospital and is called Smith & Singleton. The decor is very modern and menu looked OK, so we booked for 7pm. At just after 5pm when we were there it was already very busy, mainly with bar traffic.

Returning at 7 pm for dinner, it was still very busy, and seemed to attract a lot of off duty staff from the hospital, still in uniform and needing to relax. The food there was great , as was the atmosphere.

On the way back to our Motel, walking along Flemington Road and  just out the front of the Childrens Hospital, we could see evidence of the excellent environmental work the Victorian Government is doing. No doubt this species was on the threatened list here only a few years ago. They are now obviously flourishing in suburbia !