Our Final Days In Albury

Next week we are leaving Albury and beginning our vacation up the east coast. In the meantime, we have been enjoying our last days in Albury. Last week we gave George a bath. He was cooperative because he knows when he is clean people cuddle with him more. Yesterday Dylan was in the paper for tennis, but for once he wasn't excited about making the paper. The article was about a "thrilling" open pennant match, where Dylan and Rodney were leading their opponents, but ended up drawing (3 sets all) in the end. Dylan and Rodney had to have a drink to recover from the disappointment of letting that one slip.

Girls Trip

Blossom, Margaret (Graham’s Mum), and I recently returned from a 3-day trip through a couple of the country towns north of Melbourne. Our first stop was Hanging Rock. Before we left for our trip we watched the 1976 Australian classic movie titled “Picnic at Hanging Rock.” Legend has it that on Valentine’s Day 1900 four school girls disappeared while climbing around the rock. Eventually, one of the girls returned without memory of the events that occurred on the rock. The other three girls were never found. As we hiked, Blossom and I looked everywhere for signs of the missing girls, but we didn‘t uncover any clues. Oh well, the views from Hanging Rock were worth both the drive and the hike to the top.

Next, we drove on to Bendigo, a historic mining city. We stayed the night in the historic Shamrock Hotel. In the morning we took a tour of an old gold mine. Since there are no lights in the mine, we were each given hard hats with head lamps to wear throughout the tour. We also had to wear heavy battery packs around our waists, in order to power the lamps. We rode a lift 80 meters underground, where the tour took place. Blossom was selected to aide the tour guide in a couple of demonstrations. After the tour, we hopped on a talking tram tour. The tram took us down the main street and showed us all of the historical buildings and landmarks. It was a great way for us to learn a bit about the city.

Our last stop after Bendigo was Echuca. The main reason we went to Echuca was for the historic paddle steamer boats. We boarded one of the boats and took an hour long tour on the Murray River. Margaret says that this was the highlight of the trip for her. We were lucky enough to get seats at the very front of the boat where we had the best view.

Tennis

Since arriving back in Albury, we have played a lot of tennis. It's now officially the grass court season here in this region of Australia, so we have switched from clay, synthetic, and hard courts, to playing exclusively on the grass. It has been interesting getting used to the grass because playing tennis on grass is very different from all other surfaces. On weeknights, we play mixed dubs (Dylan/Blossom versus Kristen/Paul) and have some spirited and competitive matches. On weekends, Dylan plays in the opens against the best players in Albury. This weekend was the Albury Grass Court Club Championship. Dylan made the semifinal in the open draw where he lost to his friend Mark Shanahan in a close match.

Back in Albury!

This last week has been an excellent change of pace after a long car trip. We have spent lots of time relaxing and reading Harry Potter (K5, B7, D2), but we have also managed to pack a lot of fun activities into each day. Blossom has enjoyed meeting all of our friends. Early in the week, Louie and Rhea Flores (parents of our tennis friends Andy and James) took us on a drive to Beechworth, where we spent the day having lunch and shopping. Another highlight from this week was our visit to the local animal sanctuary. It was fun showing Blossom all of the Aussie wildlife and hanging out with the friendly kangaroos. On Thursday, Margaret (Graham's mum) taught us how to make her famous "slice" treat.

Ballarat

Rather than driving directly back to Albury from the Great Ocean Road, we stopped and spent a night in Ballarat. Although we all found downtown Ballarat charming, we spent most of our time in Ballarat at Sovereign Hill. Ballarat is one of Australia's oldest gold mining towns. Sovereign Hill is a partially preserved and partially recreated 1850s township where you can see exactly what it would be like to visit Ballarat in that era. While we were there we rode a carriage, walked into some of the homes, watched the blacksmith work, and watched them pour a gold bar worth almost $200,000. We also toured one of the actual gold mines and tried panning for gold ourselves. Much to Kristen's disappointment, we didn't get anything.

Great Ocean Road-Trip

We drove through many charming little surfing towns along the Great Ocean Road. These towns get too crowded to move in the summer, and then turn to ghost towns in the winter. The spring is known for coastal wind and rain, so it was not overly crowded for us. After two nights in Apollo Bay we set out for Warrnambool. Along the way, we saw some of the most spectacular coastal sights we’ve ever seen. The Great Ocean Road winds along the coast, sometimes through forests and farms, and sometimes along ledges that look out on the water. Every so often we would pull off at designated places to admire the amazing scenery. For some portions of the trip it felt like we were constantly getting out of the car and hiking to beaches and lookout points. Blossom offered to carry us when we got tired.

Map Reading 101

On our last day in Tasmania we drove North from Hobart to Devonport where we caught the overnight boat back to the mainland. When we got off the boat the next morning, we started our road-trip by driving west along the southern coast of Australia, towards the Great Ocean Road. Along the way we stopped for a meal in Geelong, then we set out for Apollo Bay. Kristen’s navigational skills set us back a good hour when the highway she swore would take us west to the Great Ocean Road (B110), actually took us east until we dead-ended at the tip of a peninsula. After a few laughs (and perhaps a few dirty words) we finally got on the correct highway (B100) and made it to Apollo Bay. (Good joke Kristen! We fell for it because it was raining so there was no sun, and the water was on the left because we were on a peninsula.)

More Fun In Tasmania

After exploring Northeast Tasmania, We drove down to Hobart to spend the a few days in Southern Tasmania. We found lots of fun things to do in Hobart, including shopping, walking around, going to movies, going to pubs and restaurants, playing tennis, and reading Harry Potter (D1, K3, B5). We also went on a couple of daytrips away from the city. The first daytrip we took was to a hiking area called Tahune Airwalk, located in the middle of a rainforest. Some of the trails took us along metal pathways that were suspended hundreds of feet in the air, and allowed us to look down on the treetops. Other hiking trails took us across long swinging suspension bridges over rivers. Another day we drove to a rainforest where we toured a cave and swam in a hot spring. The ferns in the rainforest were bigger than people.

Tasmania

After spending the weekend in Melbourne, we boarded a ship, the Spirit of Tasmania. It left at around dinner time and got in the next morning at around breakfast time. We had a room with our own bathroom and bunk beds. Although the main thing we did on the boat was sleep, there were lots of other things to do on the ship for entertainment. There were several restaurants and bars, a casino, a theater, and a store that sold everything from clothes to ice cream bars. On our way to Tasmania our ship went through a storm that made it challenging to sleep with all the rocking.

When we got to Tasmania we drove to Launceston and spent most of the day there. Then we drove over the mountains and along the east coast to a town called Bicheno, where we spent the night. In Bicheno we stayed in a really cool cabin with a view of the ocean. The highlight from Bicheno was the penguin tour. We toured an area where thousands of penguins waddle up on the shore at night to rest, mate, and sleep, before waddling out to sea before sunrise. Unfortunately, it was hard to get any pictures of the cute penguins because it was dark out and we couldn't use a flash.

Not far from Bicheno we found a Berry Farm that sold lots of delicious berry products. The ice cream was delicious!

Bloss arrives... Let the fun begin

Last Friday we picked Blossom up from the Melbourne airport and spent the weekend showing her around. The city was filled with excitement because it was the weekend of the footy grand final (which is like Australia's version of the superbowl). We watched the game at a pub on the edge of Federation Square. The Square was filled with thousands of other footy fans. The weekend got off to a terrible start when the Geelong Cats (our team) lost to the Hawthorn Hawks. Despite the loss, we still managed to have some fun. We played tennis at the Australian Open tennis courts, shopped, rode trams, and went to many cool pubs and restaurants.