Blogs from South Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Oceania

Good evening everyone, this morning, Stu, myself and Sue went to South Melbourne market, I just love that market, it is the perfect place to go on a Sunday, throw on a sweat jumper, sweat pants and go down there and have breakfast and coffee or lunch and a drink. There's music playing, people singing and playing instruments and just browse around the market. A real Sunday or Saturday place to go to, to unwind from the working week (not that I have that to worry about for the moment !!). Then later on in the afternoon, because I have no idea where the time goes, we all went out to Studley Park Boating Lake which is in a huge park in the middle of the city, nothing like the boating lake up the Sports Centre!!! ... read more

Hi all, I'm afraid that despite best efforts my iPad remains FULL! I can't download pics and so I am struggling to do the blog with pics. These are a few that I've taken on my phone at odd times so hope you will get a flavour. We had a mad and marvellous Christmas Day. We started as elves opening pressies, we went down to Brighton beach and swam, scorching hot day, then we took a picnic with a lots of friends down to the banks of the Yarra river overlooking Melbourne. Friends from England, Wales, Italy, Germany and the USA enjoyed a good old barbie. Brilliant Day! I did a one day tour of the Great Ocean Road. Spectacular scenery and great weather. Lots of wildlife and lots of people! We went to Geoff's 30th ... read more

Hello all Apols for no recent updates. I've been, and still am, wifi starved and have now got problems loading my pics on to the iPad so I can't do a proper Blog! Such a shame, but I'm working on a solution. In the meantime a few pics that I've taken on the iPhone and a quick resume of some highlights..... - a brilliant wet, sunny, cold, hot 4 days in Tasmania - wonderful scenery, interesting history, exciting climbs in forest air walk and swinging bridges and a great Airbnb host Yvette in an historic house in Hobart - wonderful times being shown the city of Melbourne by Flo. It is mad, busy, colourful, exciting, cultural, arty,mad mad mad!! The trams are awesome and I'm even finding my way around on them. Great to meet up ... read more

Our last day in Melbourne. Yarra Valley Winery Tours We met across the street from the Federation Square at 9 am for some wine tasting. Yarra Valley is about 25 minutes from the city. Unlike many of our tours, this tour was filled with many young people who were ready to drink and mingle all before lunchtime. We visited three wineries and every vineyard owner was extremely nice, fun, and full of jokes. We sipped wine with two English people, one which had recently moved to Melbourne, a Korean couple on their honeymoon, and a German girl who was in town for a wedding. After two wineries we had a delicious 3 course lunch and chatted some more. After our wine tour, we headed back to Melbourne to catch the season opener Footy game. This game ... read more

Arrived in Melbourne after 20 hours in the air. The last time I was that high for that long was in 1975! Anyway, Melbourne is a fantastic city with a lot of life and character. Great cafes, restaurants, shops. They have an excellent transit system - you can get almost anywhere reasonably quickly on trains and trams via an intricate network of multi-directional routes- unlike Toronto- which gives tourists a great opportunity to visit the multitude of various neighbourhoods. Also met some really wonderful people, made some new friends, and hooked up with some relatives that I haven't seen in over 40 years. Have a look at some of the photos. From here we're moving on to Tasmania. Stay tuned for those photos as well!... read more