New Pad

This is our new pad in Melboune, we've finally taken the plunge & bought. It's in a place called Narre Warren North in the South East outskirts of the city. You get a lot more for your money further out and away from the bay, so this house has an acre of land! Its Martin's excuse to have a drive on mower & a gravel driveway ! Anyone who wants to help with the gardening is welcome to come ! As we're gluttons for punishment, we move in on the 14th December. More pictures then.....

Heavenly Hobart

This weekend we had a break away while the grandparents looked after Ethan & Aidan. We decided to go to "Tassie", a short hop of a flight due south from Melbourne to the beautiful island state of Tasmania. Apart from the Tasmanian Devil (Taz of cartoon fame) and the now extinct Tasmanian Tiger, the island is famous for its great beers, seafood, high quality timber and the great outdoors!!

Hobart is the state capital and the city with the greatest population. By UK standards its a very small city and easily walkable. Its set on a port, overlooked by Mt. Wellington in the background, a very very nice view from all angles. We thought we'd spend a few days exploring around the city and surrounding countryside. There's tons to do for a long weekend.

We saw our first Tasmanian Devil (unsurprisingly really since that's the only place in the world where they are naitive!) Quite 'chunky' little things about the size of a smallish dog ! They're actually marsuipials like the kangaroo but have got a nasty bite & are meat eaters.... not something you want to pick up and pet really.

The main tourist activity in the Hobart area is to visit Port Arthur so we went there on Saturday, about 90 kms away along the coast. The British set it up as a landing site for convict labour and it quickly developed into a penal colony in the 1820's. Its a fascinating place. Absolutely stunning scenery but with a very dark past. Its hard to believe it was a site for a prison - but it was apparently one of the most brutal & feared places in the British Empire - for hardened second offender prisoners only. We took the tour, looked around the largely ruined site (badly damaged in bush fire in the late 1800's). The tour guides were very good and the history of the place is just immense.

Unfortunately, it also happens to be the site of Australia's & the world's most lethal gunman atrocities, which happened shortly after Dunblane in the UK. A gunman went on the rampage in April 1996 and killed 35 tourists & locals at the site. There is next to no reference to what went on at the site other than a rememberance pool & stone with the names of those murdered. Its pretty sombre and quite weird standing in the cafe ruins where he killed 20. Wikipedia has a reference for those interested on it at the link here.

ANYWAY.........! On a brigher note, we rounded the trip off with a Saturday night out in the city and then after a lazy breakfast the next day, a car journey to the top of Mt. Wellington, a visit to Peppermint bay and a round trip of about 150 kms before heading back to the airport.

All the pictures are held here.

Almost Aussies!

We found out this week that we'd successfully applied to become permanent residents of Australia ! What that means is we can come & go as we please as long as we spend 2 years out of 5 in Australia... No more need for company sponsorship of our visas & we can work for whoever we want now. The next step would be to apply for Citizenship, which allows you to vote & also get an Australian passport. Not sure what the requirements are but we may end up doing it if we can get dual nationality for the kids... something to investigate.

Day at the races

The Melbourne Cup public holiday has come around again and we went off on Tuesday to gamble the day away. Like 2 years ago (the last time we went) it was a nice hot day. Hawkins Jr had a miserable day....bet on the donkeys every time. The actual cup race is like the Grand National, lots of horses, difficult to pick the winner out of a large field. Mam however managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat by picking the winner 'Efficient'. Not bad at 16 to 1 although she was kicking dad for betting each way. The beer & wine eased the pain of (largely) backing the loosers & it was a good day out!

Port Douglas

Just back from a week in the sun with Ma & Pa Hawkins up in Port Douglas, Queensland. We flew into Cairns last Monday to blue skies, blue seas and palm trees shading you from the 35 degree heat. Bliss.

Port Douglas is pretty much as far north as you can go in Australia for civilization. After that you need a 4 wheel drive and a shotgun for the crocs ! We baked by the pool at the hotel for a few days but also managed to complete another first and go walking in our first real tropical rainforest at Mossman Gorge. Very wet, very foresty - talk about humid. You could almost drink the air never mind breathe it. The forest included a wobbly bridge across the gorge like something you'd see in an Indiana Jones movie!

We took the kids to a tropical zoo, usual suspects of deadly Aussie animals were there including crocs, snakes and spiders but there were also the tropical birds and kangaroos, koalas etc. I think we've done the pics with those now!

We also went out to the barrier reef ... I (Martin) did another 'first' in that I went scuba diving on two different parts the reef. Utterly amazing experience and something I'll keep going back to. We saw barracuda, dolphins and even a Minke whale on the way back to port. There were hundreds of fish of all shapes, colours & sizes down there. If you ever come to Austrlia, you must go - its just one of those things you need to see.

The pictures from the holiday are on the Port Douglas link here.

Happy fireworks day to all in the UK !!!