Well better late than never... Another month goes by and another holiday approaches. This sure is a hard life!!

December took me back to Melbourne for one last visit to some fab friends and some of my most favourite Aussie memories. A week whizzed by but I sure fit a lot in...

Only in Melbourne will you find a twenty something your old girl, frequenting the local pub, watching the dungaree clad, accordian playing yiddly diddly band (in the words of Mr Langdown) dressed in a 20's stylee tweed suit, doing a spot of cross stitch. That's why I love this place... Anything goes!

Brunswick Street and Fitzroy are right up there on my top memories of Australia, I'll miss you dearly :-( Little Creatures was a real treat for a well deserved post shopping beer and not forgetting Yarraville's Sun Theatre and the Cornershop cafe, back where I started all those months ago. It's impossible to comprehend that eight months have passed when I find myself back here in Melbourne re-visiting these old haunts. Time sure does fly when you're having fun.

This trip to Melbourne took me on a road trip down the Great Ocean Road. It's funny how so many Australians I've met have never travelled outside the city they live. Having a keen traveller (that's me by the way) on hand proves to be the kick up the butt they needed to adventure out and see some of this amazing country. A couple of days in the tranquility of Airey's inlet was just what the doctor ordered, minus the scary spider incident... Turns out that my little sister lied to me... In fact a plaster (sorry, 'band-aid') over the end of the hoover tube will not prevent Mr dirty ugly spider from escaping but did allow me to have that one night of sleep. Subsequent nights... not so peaceful in the knowledge that Mr spider was out there somewhere waiting to attack me!!!!

On route back to Melbourne from our Ocean Road jaunt we stopped at Merryn's sister's house and that was where I fell in love with two hot birds and even further out of love with being a meat eater. There's something pretty special about collecting freshly laid eggs and eating them for breakfast. Roll on my B&B dream and my own pretty birds.

Last stop... Ballarat. I stopped telling people I was going to Ballarat as after the twentieth person said 'why on earth would you want to go there' I was starting to worry. As it turns out I absolutely loved the place. Perhaps it was the awesome company of Taff and his squaddie friends that did it but our day trip to Daylesford and our afternoon spent in the Belguin Beer Cafe are further additions to my list of 'Top places'.

All in all another great trip to Melbourne. So sad that I've no time to go back again before heading home but it's a good enough reason to come back to Oz one day.

Next stop Western Australia :-) Til next time...xx