It was cold but the company was warm! We’ve just enjoyed a brief 4 days in Melbourne. We spent 3 nights with Gwen and Merv who are experiencing Ozzie life on a teacher exchange for a year. From their “new place” at Frankston we journeyed around the Mornington Peninsula about an hours drive from the CBD. The peninsula curves around one side of Port Phillip Bay. Our guides and chauffers showed off and impressed us with their “new” local knowledge – we checked out the views (from Oliver’s Hill, Arthur’s Seat, and Cape Schanck), villages, “hinterland hamlets”, surf beaches with their charmingly quaint little beach huts and met the pelicans. Gwen and I managed to squeeze in some shopping and I purchased one wedding outfit- one to go!! It was great to catch up and natter throughout the weekend and Merv tried his best to educates us on the mysteries of the AFL which seems to rather dominate the sports scene – go the All Blacks!!
We also stayed a night with friends David and Wendy (also avid AFL fans). They are working for Wycliffe where the offices are based at Kangaroo Ground – a trip there on our way to the airport proved to be true to name and we saw mums and joey’s and others too!
Melbourne is currently experiencing a severe water shortage and the landscape is rather parched and thirsty – a shower of rain on our last morning certainly made David and Wendy’s garden glisten but NZ looks very very green in comparison.
