Well, actually not strictly Melbourne. The final part of our trip was spent with our friends the Johnsons who we originally met in the Falkland Islands but they are an Australian family who at the time were doing the Expat thing like us. They now live in a place called Bacchus Marsh which is in rural Victoria, about 50kms away from Melbourne.
We spent most of our time around Bacchus Marsh but we did get into Melbourne one day, and I spent plenty of time reminiscing about the time I spent living and working there. It's been TWENTY years!!! (Sweet memories of a wizard healing a broken leg, the friendly tramp on the jetty, all-night clubbing, afternoon beers at the Espy, taking the tram to work, roller blading everywhere and more....you guys who were with me will remember all of this).
Anyway, back to the present moment. It was so great to catch up with these guys again - it's been 2 years since we were last all together (in Sydney).
Bacchus Marsh is an average-sized town, kind of crossed between an agricultural area but fast becoming a commuter area as well, as the city expands due to rising house prices. So it's a little bit built up, but is mostly still fairly rural. We took the dog (Bindi) for plenty of walks, and a lot of the surrounding area reminded us of where we used to live in Alice Springs.
Other than that, we spent a lot of time sitting around drinking tea / wine (depending on what time it was), the kids built a den one night and slept in it, we visited the local cafe for Violet Crumble Cheesecake (twice!), we all went to watch Peter play rugby, and we had lots of walks including one quite adventurous river crossing where several of our party got quite wet (and yes there were tears).
A lovely ending to our holiday, and a big thank you to the Johnsons for everything!
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