Sorry it's been so long since we've written a blog, here's a round up of what we've up to the last few weeks....

21st September:

Abbotsford has one of the biggest breweries in Australia; Carlton United Brewery, and seeing as it's right on our doorstep it would have been very rude of us not to visit!

The tour was pretty standard, we've done tours before so we know by now how beer is made and because we did the tour on a Saturday none of the production lines were active which was unfortunate. However, we did learn a few facts regarding Fosters. In the UK there is a common perception that Australians drink Fosters but since being in Australia we haven't found a single bar or liquor store that sells the stuff. According to our guide Fosters was very popular in the 90's and they sponsored the big footy events and such like but then they started marketing the product in a snobbish way - the well to do Aussie's drink it because it's the best lager in Australia - that kind of thing. This killed it because Aussies don't like "tall poppy syndrome" so they stopped buying it and started buying other beers instead. So although Fosters is stilled brewed at the brewery and sold in very few places it's kind of sneered at by Australians. Also, the Fosters sold in the UK is a different recipe to the Fosters brewed in Australia because Heineken make the UK version. So there you go....a lesson on Fosters!

After the tour finished the good stuff began; sampling the merchandise!! We also got a free steak dinner so we had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon!

28th September:

AFL Grand Final Day! The biggest day in the sporting calendar for any Victorian. Grand Final Fever swept over Melbourne for a good week or so. The teams in the final were Hawthorn (Hawks) who were the favourites to win and Freemantle Dockers (Freo) a Western Australian team who had made their first ever final. Being a Melbournite I should have chosen the Hawks to support but I love an underdog and the colour purple so I chose to support Freo.

Grand Final day starts early so we were in our first pub by 10:30am, we started off slowly but by the time the game started at 2:30pm the drinking games had begun! Hawks won in the end but Freo put up a good fight so it was a good game to watch.

Fortunately, we didn't wake with too much of a hangover the next day so we headed to the park with a footy, which we'd aquired the night before, and practiced our kicking and throwing skills. It's actually harder than it looks but we got the hang of it in the end, I'm not sure we'd be picked for an AFL team just yet!

5th October:

We had a scorcher of a day so we jumped on the bikes, loaded with a picnic, and made our way to the Botanic Gardens in the city. We didn't do much other than sunbathe and play with the footy, it was marvellous! That week we also tried Pho (pronounced Fu) which is a Vietnamese noodle soup and cooked a traditional roast lamb Sunday dinner, yummy!

12th October:

Another scorcher of a day so we cycled to Melbourne Zoo and met up with Steve and Maria. The zoo was great; they had lions, tigers and a brown bear. The bear looked a bit hot and bothered and little lonely so I felt a little sorry for it, the lions were sunbathing and the tigers were eating chicken. The meerkats were very entertaining, as usual and we also got to see the new gorilla which had been flown in from the UK.

After the zoo we cycled to Victoria Park and had a BBQ, a couple of beers and a kick around with the footy - a typical Australian evening!

So that about brings you up to speed with what we've been up to, the highlights anyway. This weekend we are off to Phillip Island to watch the MotoGP so fingers crossed we get some good weather!