Yarra Bend Park

Situated right near the CBD, Yarra Bend Park is a welcome retreat from the busy streets. It is very popular with walkers, runners and cyclists so we went to check it out. It was easy to fill in a few hours wandering up and down the river, we even stumbled on a flash farmer's market.

Kayakers on the Yarra





Dwight Falls, not exactly huge



Fruit bats, now these were huge, and there were hundreds of them.

Brent and Julia's wedding

Our first trip back was for Brent and Julia's wedding. It was a rather rushed trip but it was great to catch up with so many friends and family while we were back. Even though it seems that Melbourne isn't far away, it still took a full day (after an early start) to get all the way to Invercargill.

The wedding itself more than justified the trip back, it was very well done. The ceremony was in the Wyndham Presbyterian church and it was packed. The reception was at Ascot Park in Invercargill.



Unfortunately, my photos were terrible, the one above was about the best of them.

We also caught up with Barry and Liz briefly as they kindly provided accommodation for us on the night of the wedding, complete with complementary mints on our pillows and cheese rolls for morning tea.

I managed to get home for a day and a half and following snow on Saturday night, the road reopened on Sunday afternoon so Juliet and Kevin could take me back to town. We stayed with Shanon and Martin and had Monday morning updating ourselves with the happenings in Dunedin before busing to Christchurch for my 5th different accommodation in as many nights before catching the early flight back on Tuesday morning.

Brighton Beach

We had a great weekend with Josh and Jody at their new flat near the beach. The weather wasn't great for the weekend, and the pub wasn't even showing the Ashes but Sunday morning was nice and we walked along the beach to the famous Brighton beach huts.



We'll definitely be back when the weather is warmer.

A 5 Star bargain...

Kelley stumbled on a super deal at a 5 star resort just out of Melbourne so we treated ourselves to a relaxing weekend away. We didn't do much, visited a couple of wineries, spent a lot at the supermarket on stuff for dinner, went for a swim and a walk around the golf course. Still, it was a nice spot and a very relaxing weekend.

From our room we could watch the kangaroos grazing the fairways.

Yarra Valley with Josh and Jody

To introduce Josh and Jody to a little bit of rural Victoria, we left the city bound for Healsville. We'd heard good things about the Healsville Wildlife Sanctuary and it was pretty good. It had a good selection of Ausi animals - snakes, 'roos, Tasmanian devils, birds of prey, dingos, platypus to name a few.



The birds of prey display was a clear highlight, this giant was one of the biggest birds of prey in Australia. He is still young so didn't do a lot of flying around which made it far easier to capture on camera than the others swooping over the crowd.



One of the many deadly snakes....





We called in at one of the many wineries on the way home for some tasting of wine and fudge but we'd run out of time well before we could do any justice to the area. We'll definitely be back though.

Mornington Peninsula

We went for a drive in search of the famous custard square in Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula. Sorrento was a very nice spot and we went for a walk along the beach before heading back up the western coast back to Melbourne. It was a nice area, plenty of golf courses and typical coastal scenery.



There were some unusual rock formations on the Sorrento back beach.



On the look out for Tasmania...

State of Origin

Origin came to Melbourne (Etihad Stadium / Telstra Dome) for Game 1 so we went along. As always at a league game, the crowd was just as entertaining as the game. It was a predominantly Queensland crowd as the Melbourne Storm players played for Queensland. Queensland raced out to a big lead but it got exciting towards the end when NSW clawed their way back, but nothing could stop the mighty Maroons.

Welcoming the teams



Fireworks before Queensland turned on some of their own