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Published: February 11th 2009
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Since we last wrote in the blog, we've done a lot of k's and seen loads of fantastic places. Travelling down from Sydney to Mebourne we spent some time in Canberra. Canberra is a strange place, it was designated the capital of Australia in around 1927, essentially because Sydney and Melbourne were fighting over which city should be the capital of Australia. Canberra is located between both cities, within the catchily titled ACT - Australian Capital Territory. Canberra is quite formally laid out to the designs of an architect and contains the main administrative buildings of parliament and all the national museums, art galleries, and various other collections. I did like Canberra as it is a different type of city, a sort of sparse, new and clean Town. Though Canberra seemed quite cold and lacking much in the of character, we spent a few days doing the free stuff, of which there was plenty we also had some maintenance on the van to carry out before we moved on.
Travelling South we spent a couple of days in the Snowy Mountains around Australia's highest peak - Mt Kousicsku (forgive the spelling). It was very odd travelling through the alpine towns
Sawyers Hill
One for the Sawyer family and villages in the summer, with the sun beating down. Even up there, the temperatures were in the mid 30s. After the Snowys, we travelled down to the coast and Lakes Entrance, and on towards Willsons promontory we then had a change of plan and diverted back north to the Great Alpine Way for more mountains, snow fields and alpine villages with some awsome scenery and fun driving.
Arriving in Melbourne, we spent about a week with Lauren and toured the city. Melbourne has many more historic buildings than the other Australian cities that we have visited. Melb was at the heart of the gold rush and used to house Parliament until 1927 (when Canberra took over), so it has grand buildings and historic places, associated with these times. Melb also has lots of little 'laneways' that have boutique shops, cafes, galleries and pubs (which I love). There's lots of little lanes dotted around the city and they connect together which means you can spend hours wandering along them - fab! The laneways remind me a bit of the 'Shambles' in York though slightly more modern, if you get the picture.
We also spent some time with Lauren's
family and friends from the 4x4 club, in the country north of Melb. We swam in the river up there and went out with them on their boat, touring the wineries that are located on the river bank - fab. During the boat trip we saw a snake swimming in the water!!!! This was a first for us and was the first time Lauren had seen it in quite a while. I've attached a photo.
Since we arrived in Melb, they've had the hotest heatwave since 1908. On three consequtive days last week the mercury hit plus 43 degrees - that's a lottery number, not a temperature!! One evening the minimum temperature was a sweltering 32 degrees!! It's not nice being in that sort of heat as you really can't do very much. It feels like standing in a furnace that you can't escape from. During those three days, Lauren had calls from her grandad, mum, dad, aunts and uncles, all asking how we were coping and offering their air conditioned houses for us to escape into!
Whilst we have been here the Australian Open has been on and we had hoped to get tickets to watch Andy
Murray play, but he lost before we could secure tickets - typical!! The players were also having to battle with the heat (Angela I expect you can sympathise, though I bet you've never played in those tempertures!).
For those of you who can remember the last time Dan came here, you may recall him mentioning Dave and Jan, a couple who he met in Melb and stayed in touch with. We've caught up with Dave and Jan again and spent a week with them. They are such lovely people and made us feel so welcome and have taken us on a couple of scenic day tours down the mornington peninsula including a ferry trip to Queenscliffe an old victorian port where we had the best fish and chips ever.
On Saturday the temperature shot up to 46.4 a record for Victoria with really strong northerly winds (which are warm, "how Strange"). Later there was a storm, and this together with some "idiots" unfortunately sparked the bushfires that have broken out. The fires are north east of Melbourne predominantly so we are safe, though we did pass through some of the towns that have been lost which is really
sad. A town called Beechworth is currently under threat, and it is such a lovely typical Australian town. I've attached some fotos of Beechworth. There's also a fab bakery there that Lauren sent us to.
The bushfires are the main topic of conversation in Melbourne and in the media, the whole state and country is pulling together to donate clothing, food and raise money for the re-builing, it's very humbling. We have signed up to volunteer our time to help out up there if they need it. D used to train first aid, health and safety and utilities laying, so it feels only right to offer our time if they want it.
We now have a few more days in Melb before we set off along the Great Ocean Road - the name says it all! That is, unless we get called to help out after the fires, we'll have to see what happens.
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Lou
non-member comment
wow wee!
Hiya dudes! your life looks as action packed and interesting as ever over there...you both look so healthy and happy. Hope the Ocean Road was up to expectations, speak soon xxx