Sundowner Traralgon

... lunch, to check for e-mails, but once again couldn’t access AOL, although other sites were ok.

From there to a historic swing bridge, but unfortunately we were an hour and a half too early for the Sunday opening, so had to move on. Closer to Melbourne by now, we found a large open cast mine which supplies coal to the Loy Yang power station which provides 87% of Victoria’s electricity ...

... not seen anyone from the UK since August it was lovely to see some familiar faces and show them around my 'second home'. The next day involved last minute christmas shopping (on Christmas Eve no less) which was surprisingly cheap and unstressful. It's amazing how many bargains you can get at 4.30pm on Christmas Eve by bored shop assistants who would preferred to reduce stock for the Boxing Day sales whilst the shop was open rather than stay late! After gathering all the last ...

It is certainly hard to find a cheap internet cafe, luckily the hostel we are staying in right now has a computer. We have seen a lot the last few days, it has actually almost been like a movie. Two days ago we started to head down to Melbourne, so we bought a tent and asked a local where a good site was. He told us about a free camp site that we should check out. He didn't tell us that he was sending us to paradise. It is impossible to explain what we ...

... out of the wilderness. I was the one without insurance. The last third of the Snowy Mountains Highway through Bairnsdale and all the way here on 'Highway 1' we nailed it, 160 all the way, my knuckles white and vision fully tunnelled on Charlie's rear light. Any sudden surprises and we'd have been wombat food. I guess our time's not up yet..

... was amazing and not for the faint hearted! I've been along the Great Ocean Road today Off to St Kilda tomorrow which is a suburb of Mebourne that's really nice. Just somewhere to wander round, have an easy day, chill out and watch the world go by then I'm up early and off to Sydney at 6.30 on Tuesday morning so I'll write again when I get there. Love Lx PS Don't know what's going on with the map pin location thingy. All the red lines are wrong!

... smell barbecuing sausages - yum. We enjoyed our cup of soup and ham sandwich!! We met up with a couple who were not only staying in the same caravan park, but who also had been at Walhalla yesterday on the same train as we were!! We tried to follow the Main Ridge Road heading for Mirboo North but turned back when there was a fork in the road, and one road had a closed sign - it looked like the one ...

... the people in it were so small you could not tell anything at all. We also went to the library. Later was able to get on to the local Historical Society website, but can't find out where they are yet. The rest of the day was shopping and driving around looking at a few things. Dinner, however was an adventure - my first time experiment with cooking a roast in the fry pan - it went fine and we had a lovely dinner.

... in coming here - they won't go to India and "eat that foreign muck" - with one last hope hope of seeing us win the Ashes before they meet the Big Umpire in the sky. Sorry grandad but you've no chance. There are also (fairly) normal people, and it was one such bloke myself and Rob had arranged to drive back to Melbourne with. Simon is the head groundsman of the cricket grounds at Wormsley Park (the Getty Estate in Buckinghamshire ...

... we had taken a trek to the 'falls' as there was not even a trickle to be seen. En-route home we drove to The Lakes Entrance, which is a very popular coastal resort and experienced, for the first time, temperatures of about 40 degrees (phew)- even the locals were coming off the 90 mile beach sadly. A very pretty area as we witnessed from an elevated look-out but it was good to get back to the air-conditioned car.

... two young females, in between his 20 hour naps that is. He was a mercenary love machine bought in to do a job, he was Hamish-for-hire. Next on our busy agenda today was a drive into the Yarra Valley and a visit to a couple of vineyards, and first up was the TarraWarra Estate which doubled as an art gallery. As Australian vineyards go this must have been the most modern as the owners had held a competition between six well known architects for a winning design. Once again ...