Ballarat. (Steve)

Occured to me that I haven't written an entry on this for ages (apart from all the pictures). Shame really that owing to the fact we live in the 'real world', in terms of working anyway, we dont get to go to as many places. The only we've done since the last post was a trip to Ballarat on a Friday off, with our Canadian friend Jennifer.

Ballarat is an old gold rush town, complete with all the cheesy but fun tourist places like Sovereign Hill where the pictures below are from. We failed to find any gold but Sian and Jen did get to make thier own lumpy candles, so the 120km drive each way was worth it. Only joking, it was a fun day out, pity that for safety reasons you cant go in the actual mines, only ones they made for us tourists. If it was in Asia, then we'd have had our miners hats on (without working light) and been right down the bottom in danger of drowning. I really miss the complete disregard for personal safety that you get in some places.

Oh well, feel compelled to mention how its winter here still yet we're getting 24 degrees C most days at the moment, roll on summer!!!!!!

26/8/05 - What better way to end the day, rainbow lumpy candle dueling!

26/8/05 - Going down......

26/8/05 - It goes down to 1800 ft, and is a tad stuffy.

26/8/05 - Before going down the mine......

26/8/05 - 'This week we will be mostly wearing silly hats'.

26/8/05 - 'Theres gold in them there hills!' So they say, but we didnt find any!

26/8/05- Steve playing the ventriloquists dummy-again!

31/7/05 - Rocks and things. 

31/7/05 - Ahhhh 

31/7/05 - Shower anyone? 

31/7/05 - More Grand Canyon...... 

31/7/05 - Kevin couldn't see the pub from here, and who'd want too!! 

31/7/05 - The 'Grand Canyon' of Victoria.  

31/7/05 - After a nice walk to Turrett Falls, Emma still found the energy to do 'fabulous' very well! 

31/7/05 - Not a bad sight at the bottom of the garden...... 

30/7/05 - Was it getting a bit much for our heroes??  

30/7/05 - Make up your own caption, I cant be arsed......

30/7/05 - Two lovely lasses at the campfire. 

30/7/05 - mmmmmm, masterchef Jason, so Aussie, even in winter the barbie lives!!!! Pass me a steak! 

30/7/05 - Nice eh? The Grampians in Victoria looking lovely. 

Stuff and Raah (sian)

I am sitting here moaning about our sad miserable job we have to do for 8 weeks when all the fantastic stuff we have been up to has come tumbling back to me!

We headed to the Grampians for a weekend with a few friends (12 in total) and had a great time, sitting by a camp fire, looking at the wild life, struggling over rocks and walking through beautiful forests. We rented a cottage in Halls Gap where Kangaroos grazed in our back garden. Kookaburra's ate dog food given to them by our friendly cottage owner and parakeets squarked throughout the day. We strolled through some wonderful forests to glimpse at great views of the green Australian countryside.

We've also been catching up with AFL games now we know the rules and hanging out in Melbourne in general.

Can't wait for the next 8 weeks to pass as we have a great trip to Sydney, Tasmania and some of the East Coast planned...

30/7/05 - Grampian Mountains- Kookaburas' eating dog food, nice. They are like bloody huge kingfishers!! 

23/7/05 - The balls the wrong shape, the pitch is the wrong shape, what the hell are they doing??