Our train from Sydney pulled into Bendigo Station a little after lunch time on Friday 15 June. We had barely put our bags down before Moniques sister, Jeannine, arrived to pick us up. We hadn't seen her and her husband, Lloyd and their two girls, Tyla and Mia, since they were back in SA for our wedding, so it was really cool to see them again. While in town, we stopped at the university library and grocery store before heading back to the farm which is about an hour North of Bendigo in an area called Jarklin. We said hi to Lloyd and the kids and sat around chatting until dinner time, which was a delicious meal of brucheta with some amazing toppings. We were all pretty tired after a long day so headed off to bed - Lloyd and Jeannine had kindly given up their room while we were there, so we slept really well.

Saturday we were up at 06:30 to join Jeannine at the gym in Bendigo. They have the regular weights and treadmills section downstairs, but the main focus seems to be on Les Mills classes that happen in the big open studio upstairs. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were both completely shattered by the end - I don't think I've ever been that sore in that many places ever in my life. No time to rest though - after a quick shower we were straight off to watch Lloyd play footie (Austrailian rules football - kinda like if you mixed rugby and soccer and wrestling with no rules.) It seems that there are lots of sports clubs in the area and Saturdays are generally spent watching or playing sport (netball for the girls and footie for the boys.) Lloyds team thrashed the other team and then, after a drink and a pie, we all drove to Mitiamo Rock. The surrounding area is completly flat for miles around, so this rocky outcrop provides quite a cool view. Afterwards we stopped briefly at home to bath the kids, before heading down to the local pub for dinner with another two couples and their kids. The steak came highly recommended and for good reason - it was AMAZING. We all left completely stuffed after such a nice out and went straight off to bed.

Sunday we awoke and had a delicious cooked breakfast. Then we took a stroll up to the main farmhouse, where Lloyds parents stay, to see the chickens and the lambs. After collecting the eggs and feeding the chickens, we headed over to one of the sheep paddocks. Some of the sheep abandon their lambs and they have to get reared by hand, so they are all kept together in one of the paddocks. Timmy (the sheep dog) and Tyla ran straight into the paddock and rounded them up and brought them to the gate for us, and we gave them some water. Then we climbed in Lloyds yute (whats we would call a bakkie in SA, Americans would call it a truck) and went for a drive down to the creek, where we saw a much bigger flock of sheep. On the way back home we also saw some cows and horses. That afternoon, after Lloyd had taken the girls to a birthday party, we had a quick coffee and some cupcakes with Jeannine and then settled down to do some admin while Jeannine went off to study for her exam. That night we had a delicious roast lamb (hopefullt wasn't one we were petting earlier in the day!) for dinner followed by a yummy cheese board with some wine :-)

Monday was a day for some sight-seeing around Bendigo. We were up early to hitch a ride into town with Jeannine, who was going through to the library to study for her big exam the next day. We had just missed some big-deal Grace Kelly exhibition (was only on in Bendigo and people had come from all over the country to see it) but we had a nice look around the art gallery anyway. Next we climbed the lookout tower for an unobstructed 360 degree view of the city - its bigger than either of us were expecting. It was founded in the 1850's when gold was discovered so it grew quite rapidly. We wandered through the chinese gardens down towards the downtown shopping area. We had a quick coffee with Jeannine around lunch time and then browsed around more shops. A bit later in the afternoon it started raining, so we took shelter in the library and spent the rest of the afternoon doing admin. We hitched a ride back with Jeannine at around 17:00 and enjoyed a delicious barbeque dinner, with boerewors! We spent the rest of the evening chilling/playing with the kids before heading off to bed.

Tuesday morning the house emptied pretty early, so we got to sleep in a bit which was so nice :-) Later, we had some breakfast and packed our bags and tidied up a bit and then just chilled until people started arriving home. We spent the afternoon playing policeman-policeman and shop-shop with the girls. That night we had some yummy home-made pizza and butternut soup for dinner, before turning in for an early night.

Wednesday we were up early-ish, had breakfast and started packing the car. We loaded up lots of food and a good supply of activities for the kids, climbed into the car and set off on the 5 hour-ish drive down to the family holiday house in Ocean Grove, a holiday town along the Great Ocean Road.