A Weekend of R&R

Friday afternoon Sierrah & I headed up to her host families holiday house in Sorrento for a weekend of some much needed relaxing.

After doing a whole lot of nothing around the house Friday and Saturday morning, we finally headed out to enjoy an afternoon of spa-ness at the Mornington Hot Spring Peninsula.

The hot springs are a magical place. They allow you to bathe in the naturally healing waters of mineral rich thermal pools.
If you feel like reading more, here is the website: http://www.peninsulahotsprings.com/


After a lazy Sunday morning full of movies and homemade bacon and eggs, we took into the town to do a little exploration.
I managed to come across a bit of home.

The Sorrento ferry.

On the Sorrento beach.


Of course if they say it`s famous I had to give it a try.

Tastes just as good as it looks and stands up to its claim.

A little glimpse of the house






Overall, it was a great weekend spent in Sorrento and am looking forward going into the week fully rested and recovered.

A Perfect Fall Day

Fall is one of my favourite seasons. Usually back home fall is the time of Thanksgiving, Halloween, apples and just an all round crisp sweetness in the air. Over the past week walking the kids to and from school I find myself drifting into thoughts of fall back home and realizing it`s not quite the same time of year here.

The tree outside of my Melbourne home changing seasons.

A True Footy Fan

This weekend I attended my 2nd footy game. My #1 team is the Carlton Blues, but Saturday night it was my #2 team, the Richmond Tigers, that were playing.


As i`ve said before footy is an amazing sport with non stop action and it was another great experience at the game (with a great winning outcome!).

How can you not love this place

Saturday we were blessed with a gorgeous sunny day. So I took the opportunity to head into the city and snap a few photos of the some of the memorable Melbourne sights.
Flinders St Station


Church


City Centre

Skyline

The entire time I continued to think, how can you not love this place!

The 'Real' Australia

Today I took a trip up to Ballarat which is 90 minutes North West of Melbourne.


Contrary to what the world may think of Australia, there are not kangaroos hoping down the street or koalas in the backyard, so you have to visit an animal park to see these animals up close.
The Ballarat wildlife park specializes in up close and personal encounters with truly Australian animals.


Upon entering the park this is what we were greeted by. We knew right then and there it was going to be a good day.


We then got to have our own private koala encounter experience, where we had professional pictures taken of us and the koalas.

This is Humphrey.

Every half an hour the park had a show to tell you more about the animals and allowed you to get up close to them.
This was at the wombat show.

Wombat family (Daddy, Mommy and Baby)


We then spent some time feeding and petting the 100 free roaming kangaroos.


Overall it was a great day seeing some 'real' Australian animals.

Messages from Home

Despite my love of electronic communication, it`s always nice to get some good old fashion mail and reminders of home.

Rain

Because it isn`t cold enough to snow here we tend to get a lot of rain. For instance, it is raining right now! And it rained yesterday. And the day before that there was a huge downpour.

There is nothing like lying in bed hearing the rain fall outside your window. Great way to finish off a working day!

How Time Flies

It was one year ago today that I walked around the corner of Trocadero square and got my first view of the beautiful glistening skyscraper, the tour eiffel.

If someone were to have told me then, that in one year I would find myself 3 months into a year long Australian journey, I probably would have laughed. It`s often hard to believe where life takes you in the world from one year to the next. I have been going back reading some old blog posts from a year ago when this blog came to fruition and I feel very blessed and fortunate not only to be where I am right now, but to have had to opportunities to see the world the way I have.

Happy Mothers Day from Down Under

Another Weekend Gone By

Saturday morning was the big day of Charlotte`s party. Here are some pictures from the event.


The Birthday Girl (with 2 recently missing teeth)



Saturday night Sierrah and I let loose and visited one of our new favorite Melbourne bars, Spice Market.


Sunday brought about so very rainy weather, which proved to be the best day to stay curled up in bed watching movies. With that the weekend came to an end and tomorrow starts another work week.

Call me the Next Martha Stewart

Charlotte`s 7th birthday is on Sunday, so on Saturday she has invited 11 girls over to partake in some party festivities. My week has been dedicated to getting everything ready for this including hand drawing a dancer and little shoes to play 'pin the shoe on the dancer' with. I`ve become quite the little Martha Stewart planning and executing this party. Wish me luck with 11 screaming girls on Saturday!

Pictures to come after the big day.

Hidden Treasures

Melbourne is famously known for there many hidden laneways. Weaving a maze through the city grid, Melbourne’s laneways uncover hidden treasures and a charming, intimate atmosphere. Al fresco eateries, one-off shops and bars that are off the beaten track, all nestle side-by-side in laneways winding in all directions throughout the city.

Yesterday I decided to go explore what these famous laneways had to offer. Because it was a Sunday many of the restaurants, shops and bars were closed, but this trip was far from a disappointment. I was surprised to find what amazing artwork (and yes I do call it artwork) these amazing hidden laneways had to offer. Here is just a few examples of some of the marvellous pieces.



It was amazing to see that these spray paint creations were actually marvelled and appreciated in the city, rather than being seen as vandalism and graffiti.

We had a map of all the laneways to help us navigate, because these little gems are in the most obscure places. Some I have walked by several times before and never taken a second glance. Others were filled with dumpsters and looked quite sketchy, but once you walked through it was amazing.

As I was walking through the city, I also stopped to look at some other beautiful buildings hidden in the city.



I hope this gives you all a sense of what a wonderful & amazing city Melbourne is with so many great things to offer!