After a relaxed start to the day, we set off to see the Engelbrecht Cave, which was only a 5min drive away. They do guided tours on the hour, we’d just missed one so booked up for the next one and sat outside enjoying the sunshine with a coffee while we waited. The time went pretty quickly and before we knew it we were being called in to hear the ‘rules’ and prepare for our tour. Our tour was pretty busy, 18 people – the earlier one we’d missed only had about 6! But the guide was very good and made sure everyone could hear what was being said. The cave was accessed via a sinkhole (there’s a lot of those around here, we’d be concerned living in this town!) which was quite a lot of ... read more

We had pretty heavy rain overnight, so much so, it woke us up! By the morning the sky was still pretty grey and it felt like more rain was on the way. Having learned my lesson yesterday I decided warmer clothes would be the way to go today, obviously Roy wears shorts and t-shirt no matter what! Our aim was to get to Warrnambool today, which is at the end of the Great Ocean Road, with a stop at the Otway lighthouse and the Otway Fly Tree Top Adventures. There are so many scenic stops along this part of the Great Ocean Road, but before we got started we stopped off to see the harbour in Apollo Bay that we’d missed because of the rain last night. It wasn’t super exciting but at least we saw ... read more

Who starts major tram works on a Sunday!?!? Given the trams down St Kilda road – i.e. the main road we are on and were relying on trams to travel on into central Melbourne! – were not running from today until late December we decided to head out the opposite way, to St Kilda beach. The trams were surprisingly busy for a Sunday, obviously the beach was the place to be! Perhaps we were spoilt with the glorious beaches in New Zealand and Sydney (Bondi) but we found this beach a little disappointing. The water looks quite uninviting, a bit like in the UK! There was sea foam and seaweed on the beach…. it just didn’t look like you’d want to sit on the sand or paddle in the waves – which is probably why it ... read more

Pretty sure I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow last night! We really needed a good nights sleep after the long day yesterday……. so it was a slightly unpleasant surprise to be woken up by a commotion outside at 4:30am. It sounded like a fox/cat fight with lots of crashing and banging on our terrace. In the end we felt the need to investigate, opened the curtain to see the branch of the tree overhanging the decking bending down, I switched on the light to see a possum staring back at me! They’re much bigger than they looked when they were squished on the road! There were two in the tree outside so they must’ve been fighting, whatever they were up to it woke us both up! Fortunately after they’d been spotted they wandered ... read more

We woke up to a lovely morning in Christchurch, had a chilled breakfast in the motel and then headed towards the town centre. We took the scenic route through Hagley Park, the biggest park in Christchurch with the Avon river running through it. At the far end we came out by the old buildings of Christchurch College. Luckily the amazing Tram system runs right past the college, we bought our day passes and hopped on. We stayed on the tram into town, past the Cathedral and got off by Quake City, a museum to the Earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Seeing the cathedral was a true reminder of how devastating the Quake of February 2011 really was. Listening to the tour guides on the Tram and looking around museum showed us how truly terrible the time ... read more