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

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.