R and R

We traveled to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road. A stunning drive filled with strategically placed lookouts.


And arrived just in time for Christmas and have been enjoying the much needed rest from the road. We are staying at my awesome friends' awesome apartment while they are on holiday. This means some quiet nights in and some city sightseeing during the day mostly. We are here for just over two weeks so we have plenty of time to take it easy and still soak up the Melbourne culture.

Christmas day saw the end of David's beard experiment and a brief appearance of the 'Christmas Mo'. For Christmas we slept in late, lazed around and watched A Christmas Story, then made a delicious dinner of prawns, butternut squash, salad, roasted veggies. We topped it off with an Italian cake and a viewing of The Breakfast Club. I guess that qualifies as a Christmas movie here.

The only holiday food I am really craving is a pumpkin pie, but they don't do pumpkin pie here. So I am on a mission to make a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin. If you have done this and have tips let me know.

We have also gone to a cricket match. The Boxing Day Test match is a big annual event in Melbourne. We went on day two (David again on day five, yes FIVE) it was better than I expected but after 5 hours (yes 5 HOURS) I bailed, just in time to miss the streaker. Oh well.


So far our favorite place seems to be the bar two blocks away that serves a wide variety of beers and $5 pizzas. Maybe we will have tried all their pizzas by the time we leave!

As I have been spending a lot of time with the television I can tell you that watching TV here is living reliving Jr. High summer vacation, with a back to back of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie in the AM and a back to back of Flinstones and the Jetsons in the PM. Who know these shows were still alive and well somewhere in the world. Makes me wonder where I can catch up on Mork and Mindy and Laverne and Shirley.

We will be ringing in the new year 19 hours before our friends on the West Coast but we will be thinking about you as we raise a glass of champagne.

Happy New Year everyone!

4,000 kilometers in 3 weeks

Ok, so I have neglected the blog for the past few weeks so I have a lot of catching up to do. Since I last posted we have covered a lot of ground. We had a long drive through the outback in the blazing heat to see dinosaur bones, magnificent rock formations, underground churches, opal mines, and much more.

While seeing all these great sites we also rode camels, hand fed wallabies, bottle fed kangaroos, and camped underground!

Additionally we had a small bump in our road. We arrived at our second work exchange, the kangaroo orphanage tired, ready for a break from camping and looking forward to taking care of the adorable roos. However, we left after only one day due to unforeseen circumstances. To be honest, we couldn't handle the massive amounts of smoking that was happening in the house. I worked very hard to quit and didn't feel the need to wake up feeling as though I had just smoked a pack of cigarettes! Sorry roos!

This landed us a bit early at our next work exchange, the winery! It is our last night here and we have had a nice time getting to know the Lacey family. David has been spending his evenings playing basketball with Nick, age 11 and learning cricket from Andrew (the dad), while I have been helping cook dinners with Ally (age 14) and Jennifer (the mom). We have also bonded with Chloe the cocker spaniel, Molly the sheep, and Charlotte the cat.

It has been a nice stop and we are about to embark on "The Great Ocean Road" and spend a few weeks relaxing in Melbourne.

Happy Holidays!