Sovereign Hill and the Great Ocean Road

Last week we visited Sovereign Hill, which is a fake 1850s gold rush town (though they really did mine gold there). They had loads of old fashioned shops and houses, with people all dressed up. We went to a musket firing demo and a wheel-making demo, ate some old fashioned liquorice, dressed up for an old fashioned photo and did a bit of gold panning (unsuccessful). So that was fun.




Then this weekend, off we went eastwards early Saturday morning, visiting Geelong (pronounced Jelong not Jeeeelong) for breakfast. By lunchtime we'd reached the Great Ocean Road - basically a twisty cliff ocean road built by convicts. The weather was great. Then we took a diversion on a whim following a sign to a treetop walk, and found ourselves on a road which was nothing but corners - we kept turning left and right for miles and I felt a bit sick. We did find the treetop walk in a small rainforest. It was pretty high up. They have massive trees here. And it did rain in the rainforest, though the rest of the day was blue skies.

Afterwards, we went on to the Twelve Apostles - they are what people associate with the Great Ocean Road.


Those are only two of them. And a couple have collapsed so there aren't actually twelve any more. Here's a couple more Apostles and Paul.


We stayed the night at a place called Port Fairy which was cool because it had buildings like you might see in the UK (i.e. over 50 years old, stone). We went for a walk around a small island there where there was a lighthouse and wallabies. There is a video including a wallaby scratching itself below, if my internet connection can cope with uploading it.

The Mornington Peninsula

This weekend the weather has been brilliant - sunny but not too hot. Good weather for Paul's youngest nephew's birthday party. I watched the children (mostly about 5 years old but a couple of kids in their 30s) playing on the bouncy castle and had some green birthday cake.

Paul and I went to the Mornington Peninsula, which is not too far away from us. If you look at the map, the centre of Melbourne is on the coast of a bay that is sheltered by two big pointy bits of land that almost meet, and the Eastern one is the Mornington Peninsula.

We visited Mornington craft market, which was massive and very busy. Half the stalls were selling yummy stuff (bought some strawberry port) and the rest were selling crafty cool things. I did buy my first christmas present there because I guess I have to be prepared well in advance this year.

After that we headed further down the peninsula and got to the start of a bike track for a cycle down the bay path. Here is a photo of me and my brilliant new bike, which I bought the other week.



And here is a pier a bit down the way, where people were fishing.





Early start tomorrow for another week at work. Weather permitting, we'll be off camping next weekend and we're planning a trip to Tasmania in a couple of weeks.

It's been a while.

I haven't posted on this for ages - for a while because I didn't have much to report and then also because Paul and I went to Spain for a wedding and afterwards travelled through Europe. I've put some photos on facebook but it would be inappropriate to blog about it on 'Helen goes to Oz'. Or maybe just there is so much to tell it would be a big project.

So to start things off again here's a few photos from this weekend, officially springtime now. Paul and I went to the beach (not a great beach in Aussie standards but pretty good by mine). Also I went for a walk in Lysterfield Park, where there were loads of kangaroos. At one point the herd decided to move en mass and headed off jumping one after the other across the path. We watched them for a while - there must have been about 30. They go pretty fast too.

Spot the kangaroo (cos Kangaroo's spotted you).


Bull ants - they're massive and they like to bite, apparently.


And this is an Australian 'daisy'.



And philosophers will understand why I got excited when I saw this black swan. Paul says that here, it's the white ones that are weird.


And another thing about the wildlife - magpies swoop on you. I got swooped in the supermarket carpark so I ran away. Pedestrians are advised to wear cycle helmets around the place. Cyclists are advised to arm their cycle helmets with cable ties sticking up out of it.

Strange country.