Driving in the Big City

The few times that we have actually driven in to the city Steve has been behind the wheel. I'm comfortable driving around our neighbourhood and on some main streets but driving in Melbourne is a whole other ball game. There is this great thing called a "hook turn". When you are going to turn right you stay in the curb lane, pulling up to stop in front of the traffic on your left side and wait for the turn signal to give you the go ahead. It's a frightening thing to watch and goes completely against every bit of logic I can think of.

Huh?



The bridge we wanted to be on was getting closer...

When we set out to drive up the Great Ocean Road we were trying to find a way through Melbourne on our way to Geelong. We took a few wrong turns and ended up in the heart of the city. The city where the roads seem to be half the width of a normal road and you can reach out and touch the trams that are going up and down the same streets in the middle lane. The city where you need to sit through numerous traffic lights just to sort out which signal you need to get where your going. The city where U-turns are completely legal and you need to take advantage of to get where you are going. We actually pulled a U-turn to get onto the freeway on-ramp that we needed.

and closer...

Yay! We made it. The city is behind us!

The girls can hardly contain their excitement...

The Great Ocean Road escape

Well, here we are, our first school vacation. 2 weeks of nothing but touring, relaxing and experiencing Australia with family. What ocould possibly go WRONG????? Our trip started with a joyous trip out of Melbourne. HOLY CATS, we thought it would be easy to head out and on our way, little did we know that one small mistake would take us through downtown Melbourne! I know, many of you are thinking, "how hard can it be to travel through Melbourne?" Well, if you ever get to see one of these signals, maybe it will cause you to rethink that! Oh, by the way, a tram was right beside us, in the center lane! After only 30 minutes in the city, 2 u-turns and help from a fellow driver, we were on our way! Onto the freeway and off to Geelong. It is only supposed to be about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to Geelong from our house yet we managed to stretch it out to only 2 1/2 hours. As one can plainly see, we finally reached the start of our trip! Our first stop was Torquay which is the start of the Great Ocean Road. The day was sunny, however there was a wind and the temp was ~18C. Beautiful beach! We were on the beach for over 3 hours. Kennedy and Alex played in the ocean with Steve while Rhiannon and Kelli lounged on the beach. Torqauy is like the ultimate beach village. The beach is beautiful with lots of endless sand and some really fabulous rock formations.

After Steve and the girls were done playing in the ocean we went for a walk down the beach to see what we could find.

We found a drowned rat!

I love the way the water leaves marks in the sand around the rocks.

We found loads of star fish.

We could have walked forever on the rocks.

Even more beautiful in real life!

Great waves for surfing!!

We spent a couple of hours in Torquay and then decided to head up the road to Aireys Inlet where we stayed the night in a cabin in a caravan park. Talking to people in Aireys Inlet they actually consider there town the official start to the Great Ocean Road. We drove up to Lorne to have dinner that night at a restaurant called Marks. I would have to say that when you have kids with you Marks is not the best choice of venue. There was actually fried lambs brains on the menu. No nuggets and chips or pizza but they served fried lambs brains! Who orders that??????!!!! After our very meagre dinner we headed back to the cabin to settle in for the night, slightly hungry but with bags of potato chips in hand.

The light house in Aireys Inlet (this one's for you Mom-haha).

The beach in Aireys Inlet

We were already enjoying our trip, especially with the angst of driving through the city behind us. We knew that if the rest of the Great Ocean Road was like what we had seen already then we were in for a fabulous trip.

Ballarat - part deux

When we came home from Ballarat we decided to take the long and winding road so that we could see a bit of the country side. We went through some great little towns and found some interesting places to stop. We found some sights that we considered truly Australian and some that we just went "huh?



Beautiful old building in downtown Ballarat.




Old church in the middle of nowhere.

Fence around a grave at the cemetary.

Cemetary beside the old church. There were headstones dating from the late 1870's up to the 1990's. Fabulous history!!

We stopped to have a picnic lunch at a park along the way.

In a moment of weakness at Sovereign Hill I bought Alex and Rhiannon harmonicas, so we had entertainment during lunch.

The rest of the family listening with great intent and trying to figure out what song Alex is playing on her harmonica.

A tired child after a full day.

There is a haze in the distance over the hills. That's the fire from Black Saturday still burning a month later. We were actually rerouted due to road closures.

A wayward echidna being escorted off the road by a policeman. Traffic was actually stopped while they did this. And no, they are not the speediest creatures on four legs!

Sovereign Hill

Labour Day in Australia falls in March. We decided to venture out on our first overnight road trip to a town called Ballarat. In Ballarat is a place called Sovereign Hill(http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/). Sovereign Hill is an area that is left over from the gold rush that occured in the state of Victoria in the 1850's. Many of the buildings have been recreated to give you the true feeling of life at that time. It is worth making the drive, we spent an entire day there and probably could have been there longer. For those of you that have been to Barkerville, you would enjoy Sovereign Hill immensely.

We started out with some gold panning. Apparently there is actually gold to be found but I can also say that Steve and I are both still working!

There are loads of people walking around in costume to give you the full effect of the time. They are really friendly and pose for pictures constantly.

Not that I noticed but the youngest 2 are a perfect fit...

We even managed a game of bowling. No pin setting machine or ball return here. You have to do it all your self.



We went for the required wagon ride.

A couple of the streets of Soveriegn Hill.

It is a working mine and this man was showing us how to make a gold brick from little gold peices that are smelted to get rid of the impurities. It was 99.9% pure and worth $150 000 Australian.

Of course we stopped at the candy store for a little treat!

By the time we left the streets were deserted. We went on the last tour of the day of the underground mine. It was super interesting and not for anybody with claustraphobia.

Funny sign on a building.

Kennedy's Birthday - I am Canadian!

Kennedy celebrated her 9th birthday on April 4th. We had her party at the end of March because her birthday actually fell during the school holiday. It was a beautiful sunny day which was a first for us. Her birthday is early enough in April that the weather is still a bit chilly and maybe even rainy. The temperature was in the 20's so we were able to celebrate outside. This also made it easy for clean up as you can leave all the crumbs for the birds!!

This year she chose a Canadian theme for her birthday. Yes, it is a bit cheesy but it certainly was easy! I just bought everything in red and white. Some of the kids even dressed in red and white.

They had a great time outside snacking on chips, pizza and koolaid. The koolaid was a first for the Aussie kids and was received with mixed reviews. The cake was a masterpiece ( I can say that since I made it) and came out fabulous.

The kids ran around the yard, played a few games, opened gifts and ate cake. I think it was a success over all. Kennedy was really pleased with how it all turned out and that's all that matters - right?