Monday 21st January

Carly's birthday! We woke up to birthday presents from Arlene, she had already left for work so a thank you by text was in order.

As it's usually snows in January back home (like this year, for example) Berg wanted to spend her birthday on the beach for the first time ever. We decided on Frankston, the same beach that she proposed to me on just over 4 years ago. It was gorgeous there, fairly quiet & the ocean temperature was certainly warmer than back home at this time of year!

After spending a few hours changing our skin tone, we headed back to the house, cleaned up & went to Fountiain Gate with the intention of sending Carly on a spending spree but she spent $0. I bought a birthday cheesecake & we made sure there was enough wine/beer for a tipple tonight.

What else could we do but a BBQ?? Scotch fillet steaks, sausages, chicken skewers, salads, olives & potato salad! Good times & a great way to spend a 26th birthday.

Tuesday 22nd January

We spent the majority of the day waiting indoors for 2 people to come view Terry in the hope of making a sale & being able to make solid plans for NZ.

Unfortunately, they didn't turn up until 5.30 & 6pm, both liking the van & making offers that I considered ambitious if not cheeky. We refused them & it felt a little like a day wasted but with the tennis tomorrow we could get an early night & be fresh for the morning train ride!

Wednesday 23rd January

Australian Open today!!! We hopped on the train with Arlene this morning, heading to the City. She jumped off at her stop for work & we continued onto Richmond, more precisely, Melbourne Park.

The venue was superb, loads of food stalls, sponsor stalls, freebies & games to play. We started by watching Serena Williams on the practice court for 10 minutes before taking our seats in the Margaret Court Arena.

First up, female legend doubles. We were privileged to see a former world No.1 in Lindsay Davenport, teaming up with another star from our teenage years, Amelie Mauresmo. The other 2 were less well known but the talent was still there for all to see. You'd think that these players would be so competitive, having played to win all their lives, but it was just a c*** about for all of them, especially Mauresmo. She constantly played stupid shots, underarm serves & cracked jokes with the crowd & other players. Davenport & Mauresmo lost, though it didn't seem to matter one bit.

They were followed by No.1 seed men's double pairing Mike & Bob Bryan. They're American brothers that have dominated doubles tennis for a while now. They won at a canter & played some great tennis along the way. There were 4 teenage Aussie's in the crowd that had obviously spent a long night writing songs of support for the Bryan brothers & it kept the whole crowd entertained during the rest periods. I've posted a video on the blog in case you are interested.

Even with a hot dog already inside us, hunger was kicking in & the sun was getting quite intense so we headed to the Jacob's Creek/Heineken garden. We had a few rum & cokes, shared a portion of flathead fillet & chips whilst watching Sloane Stephens impressively beating Serena Williams on the big screen. It was cool to hear the crowd from the Rod Laver Arena in the background where the game was actually taking place.

Then it was Murray. Tickets would have been £100 each to watch Murray & we're glad that we decided just to watch from the beer garden. He walked all over the Frenchman, Chardy & into the semi-final.

We did manage to catch one more live game, men's legend doubles featuring Goran Ivanisevic & Thomas Enqvist. Ivanisevic was my favourite tennis player as a kid so it was awesome to see his awesome serve & great sense of humour. From start to finish, it was just a one man comedy show with tennis mixed in. Ivanisevic had the crowd in stitches the whole time. He convinced the hawk eye team to display his serve speed as 400km/h, he sat on the umpires lap while he updated the scores of the next game so that they drew level in the set without hitting a ball, he joined his opponents on their side to help them win a point against his partner, smashed a ball into Enqvist's face (unintentionally) & started a game of rotating tennis where every player hit the ball over the net then ran round to the other side & kept doing this for at least 5 minutes! Pure comedy. Towards the end he gave the impression that he was tiring, so very generously gave a ball boy his racket & asked him to switch roles. The ball boy was given the chance to play a whole game in his place while Ivanisevic ran around the court retrieving loose balls over-enthusiastically to mimic the ball boys & girls.

It had to end though & eventually Ivanisevic & his partner lost, leaving the crowd to a standing ovation well deserved.

Thursday 24th January

Hot hot hot! The temperature was expected to hit 39 degrees today so we thought the beach would be a good idea! Arlene & Leon took us to Phillip Island, Wallamai Beach which we visited on our last stay with them.

It was very busy & the waves were enormous. We were all dragged off our feet several times in only a few feet of water so it was a good job the lifeguards were out in force just in case.

Arlene prepared a picnic for us all so lunch was sorted but it wasn't too long after that we were cooking in the rays.

We headed to the small town of Cowes for a look around & ended up having enormous ice creams then walking around some shops in town.

On the evening Arlene cooked up a Pho - a Vietnamese noodle soup, it was amazing. We're thankful that there's enough for lunch tomorrow!!

Friday 25th January

A day of chilling out. We re-posted Terry on Gumtree & are hoping for some more interest over the weekend. We didn't do much else, Carly did cook up a beautiful Massaman curry though so can't complain. We're just loving the down time & catching up with sleep in a comfortable bed!

Modes of Transport so far - 4 planes, 3 Taxis, 11 Tuk Tuks, 6 VIP Bus, 3 shared taxis, 6 minivans, 3 speed boat, 2 slow boats, 5 ferries, 3 pickup trucks, 6 sleeper bus, 1 kayak, 1 moto, 1 Campervan

Countries Visited - Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia

Beers Sampled - Chang, Tiger, Leo, BeerLao, Namkhong, Angkor, Anchor, Klang, Green Saigon, Red Saigon, 333, Larue, Caroune, Hanoi, Singha, Acha, VB & Tooheys Extra Dry, Carlton Cold

Miles Travelled - 19,671