6th November 2013 - 23rd January 2014

Melbourne was cold when we returned! When I returned to work I had temp staff to help with my work load! Which was a nice surprise! My boss has been trying to get me sponsored but HR eventually came back saying it would be impossible and very risky. Which is a shame so I think we will be returning home after Australia. We have been doing some research and number crunching and we are going to apply for a visa for Canada.

To obtain our Canadian visa they get released in batches of 2,000 and are open on certain dates from 10 am Ottawa time. Which is 3 pm in the UK and 2 am in Melbourne! I was not best pleased waking up this early! It took us the third round to get a spot and have been going through the process of getting all of our documents ready including police checks for Australia and the UK!

My birthday was a little colder compared to Perth but still enjoyable, Stu and I went and did rock climbing which was great fun and a little tiring too! We went out for a meal and some drinks as Lant and Aish had come down from Bundaburg for Christmas shopping! Apparently there isn't much there in the way of shops!

Stu and I went to the Melbourne Gaol (jail apparently!) which is right in the middle of the city! We got ticket for the gaol and the police city watch. We had to line up like prisoners and get evaluated for our 'crimes' at the city watch. This was very amusing, we all had little cards describing what crimes we had done and the 'police woman' was telling us off!

We also got 'locked' up for the night in a cell, not very nice or comfy. I don't think I would want to commit any crimes at the moment! After our little 'prison' experience we went into the actual gaol.

During the gaol operation between 1842 and 1929 it held some of Australia's most notorious criminals including Ned Kelly. We watched a short play about Ned Kelly's life, he was an Irish-Australian bushranger who clashed with Victorian Police. A violent confrontation with police took place at Glenrowan in 1880. Ned Kelly created a home made plate metal armour and helmet. He was finally caught by the police and hung at the gaol.

Christmas had crept up on us again, it was nice spending Christmas with close friends. I got a lot of time off in between Christmas and new years which was good to unwind! We had Christmas dinner at Rowan and Ester's house, Chelsea's brother. Which was great fun. Chelsea made a huge roast dinner and Rowan cooked a BBQ, i can safely say I consumed enough food to last me till next Christmas!

Inbetween Christmas Stu worked so I had to find something to preoccupy myself, I was planning to work but the office was shut so had no choice! I decided to go to the National Gallery, which had plenty of art work too keep myself busy for a day. Plus I got my new SLR camera to play with, so I went out for a fair few walks to test it out!

New years was a quiet affair! We played some board games, annoyingly enough Mark seems to win them all. Before midnight we down to the end of the road to watch the fire works over the city which were fantastic to watch! After the display you keep hear this distant cheer, which was coming from the city 5km away!

Melbourne was still pretty cold until our little mini heat wave we had after Christmas. got above 35 degrees! The office air-con was nonexistent! Pretty much melted through out the week!

After Christmas Stu and I took a trip into the country to Healesville, only about an hour by car, but we took the bus seeing as we don't have a car! Healesville was very small, bush like town despite being quite close to the city. We managed to work our way to the sanctuary to spend the day looking at typical Australian wildlife. It was my Christmas gift to Stu to go to the zoo, but I fancied going to a zoo to see lots of Australian animals rather than a few. It was well worth the trip, we watch a bird show with some huge eagles! One that had learnt how to smash emu eggs with a rock! Also lots of parrots as well, including my favourite the black parakeet!

We also saw the platypus show, which was adorable! I have no idea how the animal was created! Such a bizarre looking creature!

We arrived back in Healesville and we had 30 minutes before our connecting bus to the city so we found an ice cream shop!

Before our next holiday I used Mark and Chelsea's Christmas pressie which was a beginners course to help me use my camera. It was super useful, I just have to remember everything that they taught me now! A lot of trial and error will be happening!

We are just getting really excited about the upcoming events of seeing both sets of parents after over two years leaving home. So EXCITED!!!!!