Friday, March 21, 2008

Some more photos


Dad and the giant sunflower.


Lucy discovers toes at the beach. Much tastier than eating sand.


Hannah the cyclist.


Bethany's birthday cake. How on earth did she get seven already?!


The house across the road from us has put up a new fence. Now it looks like a construction site when I go out the front door. There are no big dogs or children to keep in, so what's the guess? Dope house or meth lab?

Photos from Melbourne

It turns out I actually only took photos while we were in Wye River. So no photos of Michael and not many of anything else. Of course, there wasn't much new and exciting in Melbourne itself anyway. Who needs another photo of a tram? We've got our own here now, thanks very much.


This is the view down the hill from the place we stayed at Wye River. Note the inconveniently placed house right in front of our balcony.


Our house was somewhere up the hill to the right. Everything is way way steeper than it looks too.



We had crimson rosellas and king parrots come visit us as soon as we arrived. In the house was a big jar of sunflower seeds which kept the birds (and humans) occupied.



Steve: thinking deeply or napping?


Darren, our friendly neighbourhood koala. Steve, the resident koala-ologist, managed to spot not just Darren, who hung out in the trees right near our house, but three of his mates as well. Me, I mostly looked at the ground.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Travelling girl

Thanks to the always amazing mum, dad, Nicole and Raff, I got a leave pass for Five Whole Days to go visit friends in Melbourne. I gather that those that remained in Adelaide had a reasonably good time, both Sophie and Charlotte managed to survive intact and everyone else enjoyed themselves. Ryan churned through even more of the Harry Potters - if Raff would get his act together, he'd have them all finished less than three weeks after starting the first one.

And Melbourne was, well, fabulous. The weather was lovely, a lot nicer than what Adelaide was getting, and of course the company was terrific. I spent two days in Melbourne (Carlton actually, with some visits out to scenic Ringwood) and three days in a little town called Wye River, which was just lovely. Beautiful scenery, cute little house (although the driveway was a tad steep, like we nearly had a heart attack every time we climbed it, not to mention all the stairs at the top of the driveway too) and a great beach.

There were many highlights: World's Best Butter Chicken (tm) at Westfield Ringwood in the car with many exhaust pipes, the longest trip ever from Carlton to Hawthorn via somewhere really far from either place (blame the driver), the bear in the pub, completing the crossword, being taunted by all that chocolate, breakfast at Sugardough, and of course the catamites (don't look it up, it won't help you much and will just make you wonder what really went on!).

I ate a lot, laughed a lot, read a lot, talked a lot (really?!) and perhaps complained a little too much (that stupid Earth Hour!). One thing I didn't do was take a lot of photos. I did take a few but right now the battery on my camera is flat plus I've been shaped. I should get some up soon though.

I am really so grateful to my parents and sister for 'letting' me go - I had such a fun time. And grateful to Steve for letting me stay at his place and wash his dishes - hopefully I didn't get in the way too much ;) and to Michael for cooking me dinner and a whole lot of Awesome.