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

We're going to Bonnie Doon....

And that's the truth. While living in Coolaroo we had to complete the full Castle 'on location' tour and with Kelley's sister Katie over for Easter it was a perfect opportunity. Katie can almost recite the entire movie so we were all rather excited about the high quality serenity that would be on offer.



Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot to see at Bonnie Doon, although it did have a nice looking camping ground. The lake was all but non existent, there was barely any water in it and what was there had dead trees poking through it.



We then carried on through more bush fire hit areas, we'd come up through Kinglake and went home through Marysville. It was quite humbling to see the charred stumps and remains of burnt buildings. Just out of Marysville we ran into a local fair, the highlight being the snake / croc man.



It was slow going on the way home down the Yarra Valley with a lot of people heading back to the city so we stopped near another source of Melbourne water for a break.

Kelley and Katie.

Bells Beach

Bells Beach is a very famous surfing beach near Torquay, south of Geelong. The Rip Curl pro surfing competition was on over Easter so we went down to see what it was all about.



The surf was disappointing and there wasn't any men's surfing but we saw the woman's semi's and final. The final was between the hot favourite Aussie and an up an coming Brazilian. The Brazilian one and her fans went crazy! It was quite warm and relaxing on the beach and we were kept amused by the people sitting near the water as the tide was coming in. Every now and then there would be a fit of screaming and scrambling as people rushed for a new patch of dry sand.

Hanging Rock

We were pretty keen to get out and about in the new car and we had all of Easter available so we went headed West.

Hanging Rock was a great place for a stroll and for clambering about on rocks. It is quite a mysterious place, being the setting for a book and movie based on the true story of a class of schoolgirls and their teachers vanishing in 1900.





We carried on to Daylesford, famous for its natual mineral springs. This was a good spot for a huge feed of fish and chips beside the lake and another good walk, the highlight being spotting a couple of wallabies.

We came home through Ballarat after a great look around.