5th December Saturday

Car is clean and ready so we choose to have a quiet day. We set up under an outdoor shade shelter and spend the day painting.

In the afternoon the long beaked corellas go to town, squawking and carrying on very loudly.

The day was going to be hot but turned out quite nice. We celebrate by walking to the local pizza shop and buying take away. We get three -= one to eat on the walk home - one for tea and one for lunch tomorrow.

6th December Sunday - departure day

We drive down to Mornington to waste a bit of time before check in time at 5pm for the ferry.

Down at Mornington it is like coffee and Harley central - it is busy but we find a little spot a bit out of town and walk down to the beach. There are cute little beach cabins and we take a few snaps because they are pretty.

We drive slowly back up to Saint Kilda - this is no Bondi in terms of beach but it is like Bondi in temperament. People with stalls, lots of folk walking their white fluffy dogs and drinking coffee and eating ice cream. Mal thinks it is like an Australian Venice - it just needs the crowd because that is the icing on the cake. Otherwise it is of course a lot less interesting than Venice, though it does have some nice old theatres and other buildings.

We check out where we have to go at 5pm but it is only 3.30pm so we find a place to stop next to a park, more people with small white fluffy dogs.

At 5 to 5 we drive to the pier, the traffic is chock a block. We get in line, we wait, we move forward a bit, we wait, we go through quarantine - they take our bottle of metho - no drinks on board I guess - you have to buy your booze at rather expensive prices.

Finally we are bedded down in the bowls of the Spirit - we climb many steps and we have seats at the back of the ship. Looking over the wake. We head down to have tea - the meals are airport prices - the movie theatres are city prices as well - we head off to bed. Mal lies on the floor and gets some sleep, the motor beats like a mother heart as Mal drifts into sleep.