Melbourne and the Duff’s
So on to our next adventure and our last week in OZ. Awoke at 4 in the morning to start our trip down south again. Marty very kindly agreed to take us to the airport and Leigh and Steve got up to see us off and probably assure themselves that we were finally gone! So we said our goodbyes and off we went!
Arrived at the airport and said our final farewells to Marty and that was the Cairns experience over, but I have a sneaky feeling that we’ll be back!!. After a couple of delays and having to stop over in Brisbane we finally arrived in the chilly Melbourne at about 2ish. Thanks to the effeciency of Qantas we had to wait about an hour for the bags and then due to the shuttle buses being full had to wait a further 30 minutes for the bus then cram ourselves into the luggage racks to get a place.
Finally arrived in Melbourne CBD at about 3 ish and were starving so made our way towards Jude’s building via Mc Donalds. Jude manged to leave early, so we met her at 4 which was fab to see her after all these years and we headed back to her gaff in her new super speedy Suburu!
Arrived at Jude’s Chocolate box house to meet her Chocolate dog, Charlie, who was just gorgeous, and got settled into the couch and some catch up.
We soon met Gordy, her Paisley born Hubby and commenced on the beer. A few later and we were all best of friends again and we were remeniscing on the good old times while Al and Gordy argued over who would win at play station! A late night was had, but hey we weren’t working!!
Woke up to an empty house as the other two had already left for work, however we did have a certain chocolate monster hogging most of the bed.
Sat around and chilled and then borrowed one of their cars to take Charlie to the local beach at Mentone. Had a great laugh throwing balls for Charlie who was the most amazing swimmer and despite a 2 hour walk appeared to still have bundles of energy.
Spent the next few days just chiling, walking Charlie and drinking loads at night. Had a night of Poker which Al cleaned up on, but judging by the state of us the competition it was not the hardest!!!Met Dougie, another Scottish lad, who was great fun to spend time with.
Friday came and Gordy arrived home from work at about lunchtime when we had just got up! He and Al then spent the rest of the day playing Grand Tourismo 4 which was fine by me as I just had to sit and chill!!
Saturday we got up for a roadtrip,
which commenced with a fab brekkie of croissants at a Greek taverna then it was off to the Great Ocean Road. After about an hour we arrived near the beach and headed off on foot to Bells Beach (50 year storm!).
Messed about on the beach while Charlie ran about daft and we all discussed whether or not it was the beach from Point Break. The weather was very changeable, with it raining one minute then gorgoues the next!!!
Or was it a trick of the camera???
Anyway from there we set off along the geat ocean road, where we saw some amazing scenery!
Continued driving along for another hour or so with Al and Gordy most dissapointed that I was stopping them going round the bends at 100kmph!! Too Scary!!
Headed back into Melbourne to see it all lit up and then stopped off at the bottleo for beer and the video shop for a copy of Point Break to see if it was that beach.
After a trip down memory lane with Swayze and Keanu we discovered it blatently wasn’t that beach and even the town name was wrong! So another night of beers and laughs and another late night.
In the morning it was more brekkie, kindly delivered by Jude, a quick pack up, a farewell to the chocolate one and a fly by tour of the city. Heade off back down to mentone and along the beach road to St Kilda then along the Grand Prix track (at Grand Prix speed - thanks Gordy still recovering!!) then into town.
We then headed to an amazing doughnut store where Jude insited we eat at least 4 each, then headed back to the airport. Said our farewells to the Duffs and off we went - NZ bound.
So we are currenlty in NZ doing a mad tour about the islands, as we only have 2 weeks here. I will keep you up to date with our next adventures when I find a decent computer! Hope everyone is well and a big thanks again to the Duff’s for having us and entertaining us so well.
