The wedding was to be on February 16 but we arrived a few days early, it is an easy trip from Loxton in SA to Melbourne and is much easier when you are not pulling the van behind you. We decided to treat ourselves with our first night in town and stayed at the Punt Hill Apartment Hotel in Essendon it was nice and had a view from the balcony. I had lived about 500 metres from there from 1991 to 1993 where I had renovated an old single fronted Victorian cottage before moving to QLD but that is another story.

The couple who were managing the apartments funnily enough had moved down from the Sunshine Coast about 12 months ago. We dined out that night and had a delicious feed of Thai from the shop next door.

Next stop and home for the next couple of weeks was in Gladstone Park at my brother Dennis and sister in law Cheryl's place. They managed to put up with us for the duration and we went on a number of sightseeing trips together and had some really good times. We had a little family get together with a magnificently cooked BBQ dinner. My nephew Travis with his partner Tammy, my niece Laura and another of my cousins Kieran with her daughter Sophie came over we all had a fun night. We tried but could not solve all the problems in the world but we did enjoy some nice bevvies.

I have posted plenty of photos in my Melbourne album so I need not describe everything we got up to. Two of the biggest highlights however were, firstly visiting my dear Uncle Bernie and Auntie Geraldine in Mentone. It was fabulous to be able to sit with them and chat for a few hours in happy times, our last two get togethers had been at the funeral for my Mum (Bernies' younger sister) in 2009 and my Dads in 2008.

The second highlight was being invited by the tenants to go through our old family home that we lived in until 1970 in West Brunswick. Dennis and I were having a sticky nose at the old place from the rear lane as the tenants unbeknown to us were walking back from the shops. Anyway we got to talking and they were delighted to show us through the house and learn a bit of its history at the same time. Now I don't know how many people get an opportunity like this and it is very difficult to put in to words, I can say though that it was certainly emotional and an enormous pleasure.

Liz had her first ride on a tram which she thoroughly enjoyed, we rode from Airport West into the city where we wandered around for about 5 hours then caught it back out again.

The weather in Melbourne had been had been very kind and it only rained on two occasions I think we were very lucky. We had thoroughly enjoyed our time there but it was time to head back to SA and continue on our way to the Northern Territory.

Our last stop before leaving Victoria was at the Bieshaar residence in Woodend, another great night with plenty of laughs.

A big thank you to Dennis and Cheryl hopefully we can catch up during the year.

Take care and Remember - it's nice to be important but it's important to be nice.