City Living: You know you live in a city when...

...the window cleaner has to use a cherry picker to clean your windows!

19.05 & 20.05 Our Weekend of Exploring!

View from Mornington Harbour.

View over Mornington Harbour.

Views of Melbourne rising out of the waves!

On the beach with the huts.

One classy beach hut!

One way on to the housing ladder!

Pair of gulls having takeaway squid. Joanna tried to save it, but it was too late.

At the top of Arthurs Seat is, as Joanna is demonstrating, a seat! It does exactly what it says on the tin!

Wine tasting! Well, the woman serving was so encouraging, and I think it was a ploy just to move the more expensive stock!

The Tucks Ridge vineyard, with autumn colours!

Every beach has a sign like this! Note how to much detail is used on securing your umbrella!

You always see the bottom part of this sign, as it is placed all around the city. People are generally very good. We've seen some people carting sacks back after their walks, so perhaps the sign is slightly understated!

The boardwalks of Cape Schnack, with the lighthouse situated at the top. We didn't go in as Joanna described it as a possible contender for the "most boring lighthouse" in the world, plus it cost $14 each! Click on the link to see the original lighthouse!!

Just a little bit breezy on Cape Schnack.

Rye Beach just as the sun came out, before the next rain shower.

On the road in the Nissan Tiilda, she was a beaut mate!

The Spa Town of Daylesford, famous for all its local springs and historic buildings. We were greeted by a large amount of rain, mustn't complain though, we desperately need it! Especially for the waterfalls, that were dry!

On our way from the Blow Hole, we saw our first kangaroos/wallabies that crossed the road in front of us! Made the whole day worth it!!

Joanna tyring one of the three springs at Hepburn. This spring had a fairly strong taste of iron, but was strangely fizzy and quite delicious. The other two were a lot strong and not so good.

The view from Hepburn Springs Look Out Tower. You could see quite a lot of trees and the rain coming our way!

Daylesford Lake surrounded by trees going through the 'change'.

City Living: You know you live in a city when...

• People walk to work very quickly, everyone has an MP3 player or Ipod plugged in.
• Ladies wear trainers with their work suits or skirts - I have also started this practise to maximise my power walk to work.
• You cross the road in the morning with hundreds of other people at the crossing.
• The man at the cafe near to where you work knows you, greets you with 'hello darling how are you?' and knows your coffee order!
• You work with people from lots of different nationalities and there are often Greek conversations going on in the workplace - and you don't really know what they're talking about!
• You can eat from anywhere in the world from Sushi to Saganaki!

19.05 & 20.05 Our Weekend of Exploring!

This weekend we headed out of the confines of the Docklands and the city and headed out into country Victoria.

Saturday was spent exploring the Mornington Peninsula just over an hour outside Melbourne, the peninsula is at the bottom of the bay and Melbourne sits at the top of the bay. We headed out in our upgraded hire car a lovely Nissan Tiida from our usual Hyundai Getz down along the coast. We made an early start and had a poverty corner packed lunch to enjoy later! Our first stop was Mornington a lovely seaside town with a little harbour and colourful beach huts. We were dodging rain showers all day but managed to have a walk along the beach and view a few local residents!

Then down the coast and inland up to Arthur’s Seat a view point overlooking the bay a winding road which Nathan loved driving up! Again had to dodge yet more rain showers but we decided to head to the vineyards and enjoy some cellar door hospitality! We went to Tuck’s Ridge vineyard and worked our way through the tasting list, well I did but Nathan had a go on some of the wines after the tasting lady bullied him into giving it a go he even found a couple he liked! But due to Nathan’s expensive taste his favourite wine cost $50 a bottle no chance of that entering our apartment! I however made a small purchase for later!

Back on the road to experience more UK place names as we headed to Shoreham and the imaginatively titled Cape Schnack lighthouse we didn’t go in as it cost $14 each and it didn’t look that exciting! But we walked out to the point bracing ourselves against the wind it looked a lot like Devon and Cornwall with the weather to match! After this excitement we had lunch on Rye beach overlooking the Bass Strait – the stretch of water which separates Australia and Tasmania. The weather made the waves huge and picnicking took place in the car!

After lunch we headed to the main reason for going down to the Mornington Peninsula the Peninsula Hot Springs, a collection of hot thermal pools which are heated by the thermal underground activity. It was a lovely setting of 4 pools ranging from 37° to a boiling 42°, the pools all have mineral properties and are very good for you but taste like iron! It was great but quite busy with lots of hen parties having spa treatments. We came out lovely and warm and the rain had finally dried up!

Back on the road again to lovely little seaside towns Sorrento and Portsea right at the bottom of the bay – Point Nepean. Then it was time to head back to Melbourne travelling back in yet more rain! We spent the rest of the evening on Saturday deciding where to go to on Sunday! In the end we decided to have more spa water action and head to Daylesford and Hepburn Springs allegedly the spa area of Australia! We didn’t make such an early start and didn’t even make a poverty corner packed lunch – that is living on the edge!

Daylesford is also about an hour from Melbourne to the North West ish of the city, and is really green and hilly with tons of eucalyptus trees and at last we spotted Kangaroos in the wild as they bounced in from the side of the road in front of us.

In more torrential rain we got to the lovely little town of Daylesford just in time for morning tea a great ozzie tradition which I have embraced fully!

There are loads of naturally occurring springs that spring to the surface here which all have different mineral compositions and have good healing properties. There are also lots of places to have massages etc but no time for that nonsense! Headed up to Hepburn Springs 3km from Daylesford to the historic Blowhole which wasn’t blowing as there has been no rain! Still it wasn’t a total waste of time as we saw the ‘roos on the way back! We found our way to the springs and tasted the water at 3 different springs – Locarno, Sulphur and Wyuna you pumped them from the ground with an old school hand pump they all tasted of iron but were fizzy – weird!

More rain meant yet again picnicking in the car overlooking Daylesford Lake and as the weather was so bad we headed back to the city which hadn’t really had any rain – oh how they need the rain here!

Anyway that was our weekend of exploring we have found lots of places we want to go back to in the summer when the weather will be (hopefully) a LOT better!

Hope you like the pics!
Jo x

12.05 City Living: Where We Live

We thought that we might give you more of an insight to where we live.

Our area of Docklands is called New Quay. It's located on the west side, and has the majority of the restaurants & bars, which makes it a little busy at the weekend!

Our apartment entrance hall looks like this...

...we have a small supermarket underneath us...

...and also a bottle shop over the way...

...with a number of restaurants to the left...

...and a number to the right!

Bolte Bridge is the main back drop to Docklands. There are also a number of art installations along the dock side. In this picture you can see 'a cow up a tree'.

Telstra Dome is just a stone's throw away.

Channel 7 is located next to the Telstra Dome too.

This is our nearest tram stop, where we can catch the No.48 to the MCG & Bridge Road (more factory outlet shops!) and the No.30 to the city (week days only!). In the distance is where the local film studios are based, in August Steven Spielberg & Tom Hanks are coming do here to film 'Pacific', which is the sequel to 'Band of Brothers'. We'll keep you posted when we meet them both.

They also don't tell you that you are never that far from a building site in Melbourne. Just to show that we're no exception, we have this behind us and you can see this from our swimming pool. This site will house more shops, more housing and also a London Eye style wheel. Some of these are planned for completion by next year. They are hoping to attract up to 20 million visitors in 10 years! We'll almost be a city within a city.

07.05 Nathan's New Calling

After so many complaints to Optus about broadband not coming into the apartment and answering a telephone questionnaire about the service, I am now head of all technical enquiries!

Actually, this is a complete lie and we are in fact connected to Skype! So come and join the revolution!! Just search for me. After a couple of false starts (sorry Holly) we think we now have the hang of it!

Chat soon,
Nathan!

07.05 City Living: Shopping Trolley Dilema

There's one question when food shopping in Melbourne; 'When you have your own shopping trolley, what do you do with it while you're shopping?'. Funny you asked, so not to waste my degree in industrial design and after a couple of exercusions with this dilema I came up with my own solution! Its a little rough round the edges but it basically works!! Betterware here I come...

What you need is a couple of 'S' shaped hooks, so head off to the local general store. Can't find standard ones that are suitable? Well you have to think laterally and find some that do half the job. The ingredients pictured above are what I managed to get hold of.

Here are my 'S' shaped brackets. The screws are a little long, but were the only ones to fit through the fixing holes. A hacksaw will see that they are finished off properly.

Simply drop the brackets onto the front of the trolley...

...then offer your own shopping trolley to the brackets...

...and using a bungee, also sourced from the same general store, secure the handle of your trolley to that of the shopping trolley. This will ensure that the wheels remain clear and you can easily move around the shop without having to worry about who has it or where it is. Ooh the number of times we've left it around the deli section!?

Hey presto! The trolley is securely attached! Joanna is letting me know that there is ample room for more food and also the little bear. Unfortunately I told her she couldn't have it. Harsh but fair!

You may laugh that we have this 'granny' trolley, but it is a godsend. Our nearest supermarket is in the CBD, which takes about ten minutes on the tram. The trolley makes getting on trams much easier & it stops your arms being stretched as you carry it all home! It also helps us limit the amount that we buy too!!

Love to all,
Nathan.

04.05 Brisbane Weekend

We'd been looking forward to this weeknd ever since we had arrived in Australia. It was an early start from docklands as out taxi picked us up at 4.30 in the morning. We had to fight off someone who had obviously been to a club around here! Caught our flight and arrived in Brisbane just after 8.00. You could definitely tell that the difference in the humidity on arrival. We picked our car up and headed to the bush! These are just a few photos from the weekend.

A trip on Saturday morning into Brisbane took us to our favorite spot, Southbank. They have this man-made beach on the banks of the river. There is always a weekend market and some cool restaurants and bars.

They have the toughest water restrictions, yet all their public water features are working, compared to Melbourne where we're on lesser restrictions and nothing is working! The weather was a little over cast that day. We were froecast rain, but it never arrived.

This is Sam & Dan's lovely home, set in 3 acres. The house is part of the way towards being self-sufficient. The big grey tank collects all the rain water, the thing on the roof is the solar water heating system. This is more a necessity than out of choice.

Jo & Dan preparing food for a barbeque on the deck!

This is the view from the Deck looking over the top of trees towards the mountains in the distance. The mountain in the distance is known locally as 'Nipple Mountain'. Funnily enough, it features in a few photos here!

This is another view just to the left of 'Nipple Mountain' towards a much large mountain & more trees.

A glorious sunset over Nipple Mountain.

The sun setting behind Nipple Mountain.

Arden riding his bike on the deck again! It was okay as Joanna was acting a police/safety officer!

It's the one & only Bex!

And sweet Fern!

Who's having more fun here?! Arden playing with Joanna in the sand pit.

This is Arden most favoritist thing, his Thomas & friends trainset!

A day trip out on Sunday took us to Tamborine Mountain. The weather was superb to catch these amazing views.

An absolute superb spot for hand gliding, at the top of Tamborine Mountain.

Enjoying a delicious picnic and a cup of tea in a creek off Tamborine Mountain.

When Kookaburra's go bad! This is a classic example of wild birds being fed by visitors, which makes them very aggressive. This Kookaburra took a couple of swoops while we were sitting and eating! So don't feed the wild life!!

A waterfall feeding a pool, which had a cliff face on one edge that people would climb and then jump into!

The view from Tamborine Mountain looking towards the skyscrapers of the Gold Coast.

This is really for my family, but this Toyota Tercel was for sale over the road from Sam & Dan's! I didn't make an offer, as it would have taken me a while to get home!

We had a great weekend staying with Sam & Dan and it was great to see Arden again and to meet Grace for the first time too! Monday morning was a little bit of a shock though!

A big thank you Sam & Dan for your wonderful hospitality!!

Love,

Nathan.

03.05 Lessons in Stalking (Part 2)

They'll be a flurry of post comings over the next few days and we try to bring everyone up to date with whats been happening here and what we've been up to.

As the title suggests we went to the meeting with Melbourne 30's Club last week. It was in this bar called the Trader Bar, where the prices of the drinks fluctuate according to whats being sold! The drinks were very reasonably priced too!

The bar full of city types but no sign of our potential friends. So we sat in a corner so we could see everyone coming in and waited. After some time we recognised some people from the last meeting, but that was all who turned up. We've decided that we won't be attempting anything here (other strategies are being devised!), but we'll still go to the bars they suggest as they seem to be very good!

Fortunately by the time they arrived we had to leave and head out to a gig at the Comedy Festival. This time we saw a guy who spoke about the history of swearing and the differences between UK and Oz. It was very good and it ended up with Joanna shouting the 'C' word at the end! Oh, the potty mouth! The gig was a very intimate affair and was held in another cool place called the Loop Bar.

After the gig we headed to another bar called the Caboose Restaurant and then headed back to the Lounge Room for more drinks. Woke up the next morning with some sore heads for some reason!?