Search for Truth in New Zealand

We went in search of spiritual enlightenment, but all we found was a vacant block of land.

We gaped at the yellowing grass of Number 17 which stood in place of what was meant to be the house for our meditation retreat.

If this was an omen, it wasn't a good one.

We had travelled for more than an hour from Melbourne to attend the day-long retreat at Winchelsea, about 20 minutes from Geelong.

The three of us - a journalist and two massage therapists - were in great spirits and ready to indulge in a wholesome feast for the body, mind and soul.

Yoga, tai chi, chanting and yummy vegetarian food were all on the menu, which was now apparently being served up on a vacant block on the wrong side of the tracks.

With a gentle northerly wind blowing the temperature into the 30s, I wailed with dismay at the possibility of an outdoor chanting session.

"If it's out here I'm going to get hayfever!" I cried, picturing my cross-legged self red-eyed and sneezing as I tried to find inner peace.

We drove around the small housing estate, knocking on doors and speaking to residents to check the address details we'd been given.

No one knew of a meditation retreat in the street, and the cluster of residents in the sparsely housed avenue certainly didn't look like the meditating type.

And while we traversed the ghostly-quiet streets, all I could think about was the one grim tidbit I knew about Winchelsea.

It was the town where Robert Farquharson, imprisoned for killing his three young sons by driving them into a lake, originally lived.

I shared the snippet with my zen friends and without hesitation one fired up the car while the other yelled directions to Deans Marsh, on the way to the Great Ocean Road, from the back seat.

On the way, our driver screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, distracted by a sign pointing to a nearby winery.

"Dinny Goonan, I know Dinny Goonan!" she shrieked, pulling over, thankfully, to the side of the road.

The three of us rolled through the Dinny Goonan cellar door, laughing, and regaled the attendant with our misadventures.

Incidentally, Dinny Goonan, the long-lost friend of our driver, was away that weekend.

We swilled a couple of his rieslings and joked if there was a soundtrack to the day, it would be U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.

As I sipped Mr Goonan's crisp drop, I pondered what meaning the universe had in mind when it allowed our search for enlightenment to lead us to a winery.

We farewelled the boutique vineyard and continued on to Deans Marsh, passing a Hare Krishna outpost on the way and vowing to stop on the way back. Surely it was a sign enlightenment and inner peace awaited us there.
At Deans Marsh we stopped for lunch at Martians Cafe, a renowned eatery and live music venue in the tiny hamlet.

As we munched on the cafe's veggie burgers, nachos and filo pastry, one friend commented she was feeling quite peaceful, just as a tune on the sound system belted out the line "Breathe, chicken, breathe!"

There were hoots as we encouraged our mate to "breathe, chicken, breathe!" followed by more girlish shrieking when we noticed a bunch of book titles peeking through a nearby window which appeared to be speaking to us, with titles like You Have A Purpose and A Book of Insight: A Guide for the Advanced Soul.

After lunch we doggedly pressed on, believing we were meant to end up somewhere retreat-ish.

We stopped at the Hare Krishna Valley, but even the Hare Krishnas weren't home and the '80s brick veneer 'ashrams' and 'temples' had a spooky compound feel about them.

The only good karma was inside our little car.

And there was a lot of it - a love of laughter and good wine and apparently, we discovered, a burning desire to ride a horse along a beach.

Welcome to our next adventure - a horse riding expedition.

Now we just have to find the stables.