Hi all,

One eye opened, slowly.....and then the other. Where were we? With a quick peek out of the window, I was relieved to see that we'd survived our night out in the back of beyond. This would please mumma simmons!. Unsurprisingly, at 6am, the garage was still empty and dead quiet, but thankfully it was now light at least. We opened up all the curtains and made sure everything was secure in the back of Brucy boy, before setting off on our journey back to Melbourne.

The plan for the day was to stop off at the Grampians National Park. After an hour or so on the road, we looked ahead, only to see a mini tornado gathering speed on the side of the road. It whipped up and spun right in front of us, across the road. Glad we weren't a few seconds ahead, otherwise we would have been in it - Bruce's high sides were already hard to handle when the winds were gusting! That was just outside a town called Horsham and after that we pulled in to re-fuel and eat our breaky in a carpark again - classy. After another couple of hours drive we finally saw the turn off for 'Grampians - Halls Gap'. Clearly stated in big letters, 'Road ahead not suitable for caravans'. There was no way we were coming all this distance to be told that we had to turn around and go back. Come on Bruce - you can do it! We ignored the sign and climbed right on up. Sure enough, the road narrowed and became increasingly more bendy and windy. Looking down the side of the cliffs at the edge of the road was slightly disconcerting, but, Bruce was only small, so we made it in the end! We stopped off at MacKenzie Falls for a peek at the huge waterfalls down the jagged cliffs. Halls Gap was disappointing. It was an area rather than a town and there was naff all there!

Since it was still only 10am, I had had a dream (!). What was the date? 12th January 2007. Where were we heading? Melbourne. What was happening in Melbourne on that date? The One Day International at the MCG between England and Australia! Yup, you got it. I raced back to Melbourne to try and get in to the MCG for the second half of the ODI! Yey!....

Once back in the city, we had confusions at the traffic lights. To turn right here, you have to be in the left hand lane (?!), go ahead when the light turns green, pass the left hand turn and then wait in the middle of the road until all the cars in the right hand lane have gone straight over the lights and then as the lights turn red, you can finally cross the whole road to turn right. Bloody Ozzy's! Anyhow, we had a few u-turns to make and eventually made it to the MCG. By this point it was nearly 4.30 and the game had already started, so all the car parks around the ground were totally jammed. The guard said we could park in a car park over the other side of town, but that was going to take a while. As we'd already missed a quater of the game, we decided that the price of the tickets plus the price of the parking wasn't going to make it worth it....Damn Bruce! It was at that time that we wished we were on foot again. I was gutted!!

We headed back to Urban Central (the swish hostel) and managed to squeeze a free shower out of them. We still had Bruce for another two nights, so we headed towards St Kilda and found a quiet street to bed down in. All was ok, until about 5am when I sat up and I swore there was someone banging on our door. Police?! Drunk random?! House owner not happy that we'd parked outside their house?! No. It was branches banging on the roof from the tree above us. Go back to sleep Miffy!!!! The next day was going to be a good 'un....

Bye for now

Miffy x x x