Australia

We decided to go home via Sale and turn up at Cann River to Cooma. Thursday we travelled to Sale. We stopped in Melton to fix a couple of things for the couple who rent a house we own there.
It was so hot the whole time we'd been away, I foolishly bought Hollie and Chris some chocolate form The chocolate shop in Ballarat. We were only out of the car about 1/2hr. The two little chocolate owls turned to blobby owls. Oh well.
We stayed at the best Western in Sale and as soon as I turned on the air conditioner this huge cat turned up at the door. He came in like he owned the place. Probably does. He was so thirsty, we filled the sink with some water and he gulped it down. Of course he looked very hungry so I went up the road and got him a tin of cat food which he quickly ate down. After that he curled up on the bed and had a nap. He went out when we went to bed but turned up first thing as soon as I turned the air conditioner on again in the morning.
The next morning we had breakfast delivered at 6;30am and left by 7am. We stopped in Cann River for a coffee. We wanted to have lunch at Bombala at the pub that is now owned by the couple featured on the Sea Change programme on sunday nights. Just as we got there we saw the couple leave the hotel, towells over their arms, obviously off for a swim with the kids. Another time maybe.
We carried on and finally had lunch at Bredbo and looked around the xmas barn. What an awesome shop, worth a drive out there from Canberra. I had a pumpkin and pesto lasagne for lunch with a salad. Highly recommend.
Arrived home around 2pm. So very, very tired. Back to work and reality on Monday. Has been a lovely 3 weeks, I have soem beautiful memories. Will add photos when I get more memory next month.

We left early as planned on Tuesday 2nd Jan. We decided to take a bunch of CD's with us only to discover our cd stacker, which is in the boot of the car, had been stolen. Strange, last seen the morning we left for NZ, left in locked car in a security car park near the airport. Will phone them but not holding my breath. Didn't help that Steve also discovered when we got home last weekend that the big truck, left at home as we felt this was the most secure place, had been siphoned dry. Not like a car that gets siphoned, a truck is hard to get diesel into and the lines will be dry. We weren't going to let our holiday get ruined by these things so we carried on.
Trip down to Melbourne was nice, stopped at Ettamogah Pub. I love this place, so cute.
For lunch we stopped at a cafe called HalfWay Cafe. This place was the kind I love to discover. Very, very old and filled with bits and pieces for sale. Lots of antique items and other bits you'd normally see in a garage sale. The thing we were amazed to see though, all through this store, on the ceiling, the walls and shelves are parts of super V8 cars, signed by the drivers, such as Peter Brock, Craig Lownes to mention a few. Great for the race fans which of course includes Steve.
We got into Ballarat around 2pm, this was the first time for both of us and we just drove down the main street both pointing and yelling, "look at that one" "Oh see the lace on that one". The historical houses in this place amazed us. One after another. We found Anne, the owner of the B&B we were staying at and picked up the key. She owns and runs a little bedding gift shop with all the accesories I love so I was in heaven.
As we spent the next few days in Ballarat we were to discover like many towns in Australia, it has its set of problems such as bored youth etc but overall we found it such a friendly town. People were so helpful and quick to chat.
The first morning I went for a walk and stopped to pat a dog who was with two elderly gentlemen. They were very quiet and never said a word until the owner piped up and said "don't spoil her too much" then he laughed. I realised as I stood up why they were so quiet, I'd been giving them a birds eye view down my top. Oh well, probably topped the morning off for them.
We really did fall in love with this town and hope to go back soon. Maybe not everyones cup of tea but it would suit us.

Well today is New Years day and we're getting ready to head for Melbourne tomorrow. We hope to leave about 5am as we have an appointment with someone down there at 5pm. We've booked into a little B&B which is a renovated miner's cottage at Ballarat. Here is the website.
http://www.ballarat.com/elgin/
How cute is it? Didn't make the New Year last night, Steve and I went to see a movie in civic (Babel). I enjoyed it except the new theatre is very small and the screen large and so we ended up with blurred vision and the lady next to us left after an hour because of a sore neck. Very hard to make out what was going on at times. One of the characters was deaf and mute and so to understand her now and then the movie went into total silence and the only thing you could hear was the man two rows in front of us snoring.
Anyway we got home around 10 so I went straight to bed and read for a while before I crashed.
Not sure when I'll update this as it depends if we go anywhere there is internet access. Will take lots of photos though.

Its so nice to finally be here. Its Thursday now and I'm doing this on my sister Judy's computer. We got in last night to the motel around 11.30pm.
Tuesday I spent the day doing the final pack. Hollie came home, packed her stuff then she went to Chris's place till it was time to go.. Steve worked up till about 2pm. We got into our Sydney motel aorund 11pm. Stevbe asked which bag we wanted to take up to the room, Hollie and I said all of them. So there we were standing outside the car with Hollie's HUGE pink monster bag, my medium size, normal bag and then here is Steve's tiny little bag. Pretty pathetic really. Hollie's is on wheels so she was able to pull hers along but Steve, ever the gentlemen carried mine and his. I said we'd have to get the parking ticket from reception as it was $5, Steve complained and said "yeah by the time we pay the extras it costs us as much as the big hotels!! No it doesn't, I'd done my homework. As he's dragging the bags into the hotle he was muttering under his breatn "probably cost us another $5 to go up the elevator". He had to shut up when the guy gave us the parking for free. We finally stagger into our oversized wardrobe of a room. Talk about tiny. There's even a note on the bathroom door to make sure you keep the door closed when you have a shower so the water doesn't wet the carpet.
I'll continue this with another page on how we got on on our flight.

Well the day started early, got to work just after 6:30am. 71 cheques to bank so took most of the day to process, then it was accounts payable. Busy day but got through it and in between had some nice conversations with a couple of people. Makes one glad they work there. Still I needed relief from all that built up stress. Rang home and Steve had just got in, so off home quickly for a bit of 'how's ya father'.
Didn't quiet picture announcing it to the world when I got back but oh well. To those of you still so young to find anyone over 40 doing it repulsive just wait till I'm 60. On my return the party was in full swing and so was Gayle. And for those who missed my announcement I can thank Gayle for making sure EVERYONE heard about it.
Then its on to the games, lots of fun except noone told me the secret so I can take it to NZ. After dinner we had a little bit of stretching, led by Gayle. Damn!! who knew,.... that lady is very flexible. Great party trick Gayle, I'll be taking that to NZ as well. Where's the damn video when you need it.
I thank those who were so thoughtful in giving the little gifts to us all, Renay, Steph and the mystery person who I'm not allowed to name yet. Thank you all for your effort, very sweet.
Renay I'm sorry I didn't get to say Merry Xmas to you, had something else on my mind but thought of it on my way back.
Today begins the major clean up here and last minute things to get ready for the big fly off Wednesday morning.
Well guys, talk to you again soon, I'm hoping to get up early enough Wednesday morning to say bye before we leave for Sydney but we have to leave by 4am so i'm not promising.