As you can imagine, I didn't get much sleep on the bus last night, but thankfully Dave had offered to meet me at the bus station at 8am this morning so I didn’t have to do anything too strenuous when I arrived in Melbourne. Thank you Dave and sorry for getting you out of bed so early on a Sunday morning!

When we arrived back at their house which was around 30 minutes drive back from the city centre, with Dave trying to explain the Melbourne hook turns to me, which defy all driving logic and only apply in Melbourne, very weird!!!

You need to read this to try to understand them.....

A hook turn is a traffic-control mechanism where cars that would normally have to turn across oncoming traffic are made to turn across all lanes of traffic instead.

Hook turns are relatively rare, but can be used to improve the flow of through-traffic or to keep the middle of the road free for trams or other special uses. For automobile traffic, intersections that permit hook turns generally require them, although the situation may be different for other vehicles (see below).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn

Once I had dropped off my bags and had a shower and got changed we decided to head out for some breakfast and they knew the perfect place. We drove over to the Dandenong Ranges to a village called Olinda, where we went in to Ranges Restaurant for a "Ranges Breakfast". Breakfast was great and just what I needed after mu long journey. Then we popped into the Olinda Sweet Co. shop behind the restaurant so that Dave could pick up his favourite sweets before we left.

Our next stop was over to Kallista where we went to Sherbrooke Forest to feed birds. The birds which were mainly Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos, Crimson Rosellas, Galahs and Australian King Parrots would fly down you and eat seeds directly from your hands.

After we had finished feeding our seed mix to the birds we decided to head out to one of the forest walks, which as we had Megan with us was a fairly easy 20 minute circular route through the forest on the lookout for the Lyrebird. Sherbrooke is well known for its Superb Lyrebird population, which has increased recently with efforts to reduce the feral cat and fox population but although we could hear their distinctive calls, we had no luck at spotting one.

As I didn’t see one and only heard one, I had to find out what they looked like.....

A Lyrebird is either of two species of ground-dwelling Australian birds, most notable for their superb ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment. Lyrebirds have unique plumes of neutral coloured tail feathers. Lyrebirds are among Australia's best-known native birds. As well as their extraordinary mimicking ability, lyrebirds are notable because of the striking beauty of the male bird's huge tail when it is fanned out in display; and also because of their courtship display. A group of Lyrebirds is called a musket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird

On the way back home we stopped off at the Mornington peninsular (Flinders) where we had a quick walk over to the views over the sea but as the weather today was not that brilliant, so the view was a little restricted due to the clouds.

My first night back a the house and Karen cooked a great dinner, I think it was a secret recepe of her Mum’s and although she did let me know how it was made, I can’t remember, so a little email from Karen would be appreciated so that I can try it for myself when I get back home. Thanks.