Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all fine and looking foward to Christmas! Well, that's two weeks up in OZ already. Andy and I had another action packed week, no sky diving but plenty of fun.

On Monday we took our hire car out on the Great Ocean Road again, it is meant to be one of the most spectacular drives in the world and it certainly did not disappoint. We stopped at a wee town on the coast called Lorne and headed for the Eriske waterfalls which were beautiful! The drive itself on the Great Ocean Road was beautfiful, miles upon miles of bright blue water and beaches. We stopped at one beach where we had the whole beach to ourselves : ) We drove onto a place called Apollo Beach and attempted to play frisbee on the beach but it was a little bit too windy. We had a gorgeous meal in a restaurant overlooking the sea! We have definately been dinning out in style whilst in Melboure, the full 3 courses! I no longer feel like a backpacker, it is great!

On Tuesday we drove out to the Yarra Valley and came accross a random little family run business with loads of different activities. We wandered through the maze and then got throughly confused by the rainbow maze! We played a round of mini golf, it was close but Andy won in the end. I will beat him at one sport one day! In the evening Rachel and Liz (Miss Balston at Turra) came round to the apartment for some fizzy pop and we headed out for chinese meal, YUM! We went onto a cocktail bar and caught up each others travel stories as we had not seen Liz since the last night of term in July! It was brilliant to catch up with another Turra teacher on our world travels.

On Wednesday Andy and I celebrated Christmas since I won't be at home this year. During the day we took a cruise along the Yarra River and saw some amazing sights, including some very fancy looking apartments. In the evening we cooked our own Christmas meal, for starter we had, olives (a favourite of ours in Melbourne along my cup cakes addiction), stuffed pepers and homous! For main we had a special pasta dish prepared by Andy! Not the usual Christmas meal but it was superb. We followed dinner by opening up all our Christmas presents : ) Thank you very much to all my girls for their cards and my bracelet, it is gorgeous, and greaty appreciated! Missing you all. I got Andy a variety of presents from around the world and he got me a beautiful black dress, journal and ugg boots! Yeah! It was a brilliant Christmas, very strange with the sun shinning outside : )

On Thursday we decided to rent some rollar blades, dangerous considering how clumsy I am but I managed not to fall, probably because Andy caught me half the time. We took our rollar blades along the beach front, it was the perfect day for it. In the evening we headed back to Chinatown for another brilliant meal

During the day on Friday we went to the Ian Potter Gallery and the Moving Image Gallery in Federation Square in Melboure, a cultural day all round. The Moving Image Gallery was really fasinating, looking at the backround of how films are created, the main focus being the new film Australia. The Ian Potter Gallery had a lot of work created by Aboriginals which was really interesting to see. In the eveing we went for an Italian meal, one of the best meals I had ever experienced, goats cheese salad for starter followed by steak and a cheese board! YUM!

On Saturday we went to the Melbourne Museum, the Mind and Body exhibitions were particularly interesting. The weather took a worse for the Saturday, the most rainful in 3 years so we decided to seek shelter in the apartment and enjoyed an evening of olives, pizza, ice cream, cupcakes and champagne.

Thankfully the rain had cleared up by Sunday so we headed to the Luna Amusement Park in Melbourne. Anything was possible after doing a skydive the previous week, including a ghost train, ferrace wheel and dodgems. The 3D Circus was actually quite scary with clowns jumping out at you. For our last meal together we headed to the Yarra River and enjoyed a very extravegent meal on the waterfront! Andy had crab for starter followed by lobster and I had smoked salmon followed by fish pie and mash! Beautiful! We ended the evening by heading to the casino which was enormous! We were pleased with our $24 win on the roulette.

I waved goodbye to Andy at the airport last night. I checked back into a hostel today and I must say I am going to find it hard to adapt to hostel life again after being a luxury apartment for two weeks. I think I am going to aim for Ramsay Street this week, I can't do Melbourne without a visit to the Neigbours set.

I hope you are well and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Love Gayle

x x x