Road trip with Marisa and Pania

We went for a road trip August 2nd with our friends Marisa and Pania. We headed north of Melbourne and checked out the Organ Pipes - a lava rock formation that looks exactly like it sounds!


Then we headed over to Hanging Rock - apparently four schoolgirls disappeared during a picnic near Hanging Rock and three were never found!!


We also went for a detour to Sunbury to find the Rupertswood mansion - the home of "The Ashes". The Ashes itself is a famous cricket match between Australia and England that dates back to 1882. It got that funny name when Australia beat England for the first time - a newspaper reported that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. When the English team came to Australia the next year, they stayed at Rupertswood. The lady of the estate gave the English captain a small urn to be used as a perpetual trophy for matches between the two countries. We didn't find that urn but we did enjoy wandering around the mansion - no one was around and felt like we owned it!!


We headed over the Daylesford and checked out The Chocolate Mill - probably the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life!!

Footy!

Kat's first footy game was the Hawthorne-Collingwood game with Chris and Marisa on August 1st. There were over 50,000 people there and boy do they ever love their Australian Rules football!!

Each team has specific colours and people are pretty die-hard supporters as you can tell by the sea of black and white (Collingwood colours)!

This is Lance "Buddy" Franklin - Hawthorne's star player

Had my first meat pie - a tradition at the footy!

Queenscliffe

On July 26th-27th, we went to Lucinda's family beach house in Queenscliffe - which is just west of Melbourne about an hour or so. We had a lovely dinner and lots of wine and conversation... and the next day we went for brunch at one of the cafes and then strolled around funky little shops. We also went for a walk along the beach and found some interesting things.

Birthdays!!

Kat's birthday weekend started off with an evening at Melbourne's famous Circus Oz - two hours of amazing acrobatic performances and comedy!!


Kate, our flatmate, was a sweetheart and made sure the tradition of a birthday apple pie continued!!

Kat's birthday surprise was a dinner on the Colonial Tram Car Restaurant! We enjoyed a yummy five course meal while we slowly trundled through the city!! We also popped into Crowne Casino briefly for a spin on the one-armed bandits while we waited for the tram to pull up!!




We also watched the sunrise at Chris' work on Kat's actual birthday - we got to sleep in because it is winter here and the sun didn't rise until 7:36!


For Chris' birthday weekend, we went to "the SNOW" as they call it here! We went to Mt. Buller - about fours away from Melbourne. They had been having record snowfall and the conditions were actually not bad. Chris snowboarded while Kat tried to ski on the first day. We were feeling a little sore the next day so we went snowshoeing for a change of pace. I think hiking through the snow gum forests on fresh powder in the silence was our favorite part of the weekend!!