Weekend away in Bendigo

Last weekend we planned to go to Bendigo in Country Victoria with Jo and Ian to go to a sheep and wool fayre. Chris and I got the train up on the Friday night and arrived at the place we were due to stay at about 8.30 pm to find it all locked up and noone around.... We called the no on the details and left messages but no answer.... Upon checking the confirmation, it said if you were going to arrive LATE then let them know in advance but it did not mention what late was...

We hung around outside the hotel for a bit and waited for Jo and Ian to turn up and hope that they had organised a late check in... When they arrived, it became clear they had been no more organised than we were.... So we were stuck in Bendigo with nowhere to stay on quite possibly one of the busiest nights of the year and all the other accommodation was full.... So we all got back into Ian and Jo's car and drove the 1.5 h back to Melbourne - not great when we were all exhausted after a long week at work and too much beer at Annelies' leaving do at the Belgian Beer Cafe the night before!!!!

On the Saturday morning, we called the hotel and found out that they closed at 8pm on the Friday night (mental note - Country Australia is on a different timescale to the rest of the world!)... However, we also found out that they had not given our rooms away and so headed back to Bendigo on the Saturday morning.

After checking into the hotel, we went to the Sheep and Wool fayre. We saw lots of crafty things - wool. felts etc as well as sheep, alpacas and sheep dog trials which was all good fun.

On the Saturday night, we drank too much which was fun but not so good on the Sunday morning... Still after a good breakfast we all felt a lot better, had a wander round Bendigo and went to the Chinese Museum which was awesome.

On our way back to Melbourne, we went to Hanging Rock - inspiration for the book and film "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and went for a walk there. It is a really cool place which was caused by volcanic rocks. Definately worth a visit when we have people over as it is not very far outside of Melbourne.

A wet and windy winter weekend in Melbourne

This weekend the weather was a bit rubbish but there was still lots to do in Melbourne.... I went out on Friday night to a variety of bars in the Crown Casino and had a few drinks. On Saturday morning the weather was rubbish so we decided to go along to a board games afternoon which was being held in a cafe on Lygon St... a different but excellent way to spend a wet and windy afternoon in Melbourne!!!

Dinner consisted of WAY too many pork dumplings at the dumpling house in China Town followed by a trip to Avenue Q which was excellent!!!! Not very PC but absolutely brilliant!!!!!

It's cold!

I cannot believe how cold it can be here - there was frost on the cars and train platform this morning (anyone would think it is winter at the moment!!!!!). The nights are really cold but the days are clear and sunny (about 14 C at lunchtime). The clear nights make for some amazing sun rises that never fail to cheer me up as I am getting the train to work.....

It is sooo cold at home - there is no double glazing or any insulation here at all (in fact it feels warmer outside than it does inside sometimes!!!!). And as for central heating - don't even go there!!!!! But hey, if being cold in the house is the biggest downside of winter here then it is one I can easily live with!!!!!

Wine tasting in the Yarra Valley

June 2009

On a Sunday in June, 7 of us hired a minibus with guide to head out to the Yarra Valley. We went to 4 wineries and a dairy and tasted the wine and cheese on offer. We also bought far too much wine :-) Some of the places we went to had been devasted by the bush fires in Jan 2009 and we were amazed to the see the fantastic new growth which was occuring. In the photos, you can see how the trees are sprouting new green shoots everywhere! The area had had quite a lot of rain recently as well and the land was lush and green which was amazing to see after such devastation.

Australia vs Japan Football World Cup Qualifier

In June, we went to see Australia play Japan at football in a world cup qualifier at the MCG. We were both really impressed by the MCG - it is an awesome stadium... Like a lot of the sports venues in Melbourne it is near the CBD centre and so easy to get to. The football was not great but we had a fab time there and definately want to go back at some point to see a game of footy or cricket. Australia won which made it even better!

Here are some of our pictures from it. The pitch looked tiny!!!!

At the Docklands May 2009

There was a sound and light festival being held at the Melbourne Docklands at the end of May 2009 that we decided to go to. The Docklands has loads of shops, restaurants, bars etc as well as the Oz equivalent of the London Eye (the Southern Star) (which unfortunately has been broken since the heatwave in Jan....). Here are some of our pictures of the Southern Star

You also get some great views of the Westgate Bridge, the city and the Etihad Stadium from here.

Chris enjoying a well deserved pint of James Squires beer :-)

May 2009

Moving into our house

Most of May was taken up moving into and sorting out our new house in Gardenvale which we had found to rent. We took delivery of our container on May 6th 2009 - roughly 2 months after it had left Hertford. Grace turned up with our container and unloaded it.

Chris hard at work checking off the boxes as they arrived.

Again we were surrounded by a sea of boxes which needed to be sorted out

This was quite a daunting task and took us a couple of weeks to get the house straight as we were working full time whilst doing it.....

the first few months

March 2009-April 2009

We arrived in Melbourne on the 12th March 2009 following a direct flight from London Heathrow via Hong Kong to Melbourne... Not a bad flight just long and we were in economy so not a lot of space... luckily though we got the emergency aisle exit seats which made it more bearable.... After staying overnight in a city centre hotel, we spent the Friday starting to sort out our new lives... Appointments with the bank to get our account activated, Medicare to get our health cards, TFN numbers etc before heading out to "home" until our container showed up... We were staying in St Kilda in a studio flat which although small was in a great location for Fitzroy St and Acland St. We had the weekend to recover and purchase essential stuff like mobile phones and laptops but were gutted when it absolutely chucked it down the whole time - this was not what we expected in Australia!!!!!!!

On the Monday we both started work. Chris had a horrendous commute which took about 1.5 h and consisted of a tram, train and bus but to be fair most of the time it worked out fine... Work for the first few weeks was a bit slow for both of us as expected.

We went to the Etihad Stadium to see St Kilda play the Sydney Swans. It was a great game and we both really enjoyed it. We adopted St Kilda as our team and somehow they are unbeaten and top of the league!!!!!

We also went to the Australian Grand Prix on a very hot day in March. It was held at the Albert Park which was about a 15 min walk from where we were staying in St Kilda so we figured we might as well go and see it as we were going to be disturbed by the noise. It was a great day out but sooo warm and dusty. No decent photos of the race though :-(

In March, there was a food and wine festival in Melbourne and we went wine tasting... Lots of wines to taste in the sunshine on the South Bank in the CBD..... A bit of a messy afternoon as it was incredibly warm but a good introduction to Victorian wine :-)

In April, we started thinking about where we would like to live... Part of my move to Australia was a desire to live near the beach and so we looked at a number of different suburbs... But we also had to be near a train station or tram line to get me into work and somewhere that Chris could easily drive to work. Not an easy task given the different needs. We initially started off looking at St Kilda, St Kilda East, Malvern and Prahan but soon realised we would not find what we wanted and so we expanded our search and found Brighton. We went there on an awesome sunny day and fell in love with the beachside living in the sunshine!!!

So we decided to find a place to live near there and found a nice house in a suburb called Gardenvale which ticked most of the boxes - 1 mile to the beach, 20 mins on the train to Flinders St and about 30 mins for Chris to drive to work. Gardenvale has a nice but small high street with a few restaurants, a take your own food (!) wine bar and a few wee shops. We took delivery of our container on the 5th of May - approximately 2 months since it had left our house in Hertford which we were very impressed by! We also picked up our new car about that time - a brand new ford focus - and at that time life over here really began to take off and stop feeling like a constant holiday! Although even now it still can feel a bit like that :-)

Over Easter, we took advantage of the bank holidays and headed over to Sydney for a long weekend which awesome. We met up with a friend of mine from Uni, Lorna, and she took us to the Blue Moutains for the day which was fab! We also explored lots of the beaches, the city and the harbour and had a fab time.