Any one know how to slow time down?

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Ellie and I are gearing up for our move to St Kilda on Tuesday next week. We are both now working full-time as Ellie has picked up some admin work at a Roman Catholic insurance firm (if that's not a proper gap-year experience, then I don't know what is) and should be there until Christmas; I think they have plenty for her to do. I am still working as a payroll officer/administrator and being kept busy as well. They are trying to find new work for me to do all of the time so fingers crossed I will be there for a while yet (I am working for Myer who are big department store out here and have a payroll of around 20,000 staff...I am not processing them all).

We had a absolute blast at the races a couple of weeks ago and although we didn't win much (Ellie won more than me), we fully soaked up the atmosphere of what the Melbourne Cup Carnival truly had to offer. It was an absolutely roasting hot day and we managed to successfully push our way through to the finishing post to see Black Caviar romp home (she didn't even break into a sweat) which was pretty cool. I will post the pictures of our day (including a great one of Black Caviar) after I finish this entry.

Last weekend we went to Melbourne Aquarium after seeing on the news that the aquarium had had some exciting new arrivals: a few baby penguins. The baby penguins were, well, adorable and extremely tiny and I think we managed to stay around the enclosure of the penguins for around an hour. We covered the rest of the aquarium in 30-45 minutes! The aquarium itself was pretty cool and although not particularly big, an awful lot of weird, wonderful and slightly ugly (and totally hideous) sea creatures had been crammed in (not inhumanely, may I just add).

It was definitely a worthwhile experience going to the aquarium and seeing the baby penguins (they were worth the entry fee alone) but everything else was really much the same as any other aquarium if I am honest! Although not necessarily an aquarium, Gold Coast Sea World had a much better shark enclosure and underwater viewing area compared to Melbourne's but I suppose unless you are going to introduce saltwater alligators into the shark enclosures for a duel, there isn't much else to compare apart from the range of species on offer at each attraction.

Tomorrow, Ellie and I are off to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for a tour of the stadium and a look around the Australian Sports Museum which is also inside the stadium. I am particularly looking forward to this experience and Ellie and I will actually be going to the ground again in a few weeks time when we see Shane Warne's Melbourne Stars compete in the Twenty20 Big Bash League. At $20 a ticket and the chance to see a cricket legend (that's if we recognise him after all the plastic surgery) - it seemed like a good deal!

In other news, we have booked up our New Zealand flights for next year at a bargain price and are off to Auckland on the 25th Feb for a whistle-stop tour of both islands in a campervan and then fly from Christchurch to Brisbane on the 15th March. We will then spend some time with my family there (and on the Gold Coast, where we will hopefully see the family that we stayed with in Currumbin Valley) for around a week or so, fly down to Sydney for a brief week stay there and then fly back to the UK on April 2nd. I honestly can't believe how quick the time is going, I reckon after Christmas the time will fly by even more so. After all, it is only a month now until Ellie's mum is over and sampling an Aussie Christmas with us!

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