Homeward Bound

Our last blog you will be sad/relieved to hear! It is our last day in Melbourne which has been an eventful one so far- cleaners awoke us at 6.30am to find us and our stuff still in situ (they weren’t very impressed) which makes packing fairly swift when a middle-aged angry Maltese woman is barking orders at you!

After our weekend at the Australian Open we flew to Alice Springs and negotiated the 5 hour drive through the desert to Uluru (in a Hyundai Getz, not ideal) We arrived at Uluru just before sunset and took hundreds of photos of it as it changed colour with the rapidly reducing light. The temperatures soared to 46 degrees that day! The next day we journeyed to the Olga ranges which are like a ‘lumpy’ version of Uluru where we did some hiking, but not as much as we would’ve liked due to the heat. We actually found the Olgas more impressive than Uluru, surprisingly. We headed back to Melbourne via Alice Springs again as Fi’s annual leave finally ran out!

Fi returned to work and Daniel and Dave hit the Great Ocean Road diving into some remote coves and bays along the way. While Fi was still hard at work Dave jetted off to New Zealand to make the pilgrimage back to Invercargill, where Dave lived for 7 months, 8 years ago. He stayed with his host family from 2003 and caught up with members of the PE department and the secretaries, who treated him like he’d only been gone for 2 weeks!

That brings us to this week, where we’ve said goodbye to friends and colleagues. We had an amazing dinner at Jon and Gail’s where they showed us a video of our time down under - check it out on facebook! We will miss Melbourne and friends old and new, but equally looking forward to coming home .

We are heading home via Japan and we will land in the UK on 25^th February so see you soon!

Home from home!

We can’t believe how quickly time has flown by-we will be home in a month’s time. Since our last blog, we’ve had lots of holidays, seeing friends and family from blighty and relaxing. Fi’s only worked 4 shifts in 2011 so far!

We welcomed the new year in with friends Alex and Amy in beautiful Sydney. We stayed with Alex’s aunt and uncle and Amy’s sister, Margot. They all showed us great hospitality and secrets of Sydney including a cocktail from the Shangri-La hotel overlooking the harbour and bridge, Bronte beach and sea-kayaking at Balmoral Beach. We had a civilised New Year’s Eve dining in style at Pott’s point, from where we watched the awesome fireworks. We also squeezed in some more cricket at the SCG, on day 1 of the Sydney test and Dave also returned on day 3 with Rob-he is now officially a cricket addict!

On arrival back to Melbourne, we had visitors Liv and Izzy Hunter which was lovely. We also greeted Fi’s Mum, Hazel. We had a great time with her, showing her where we live and some of the local highlights. We also took her to a house party where she showed us she’s ‘still got it’, out until 3am! We then had 5 nights in Cairns together where we did lots of day trips-to the Great Barrier Reef, Daintree rainforest, Cape tribulation and the town Karunda which involved a skyrail over stunning rainforest and waterfalls. When snorkelling we had to wear ‘stinger suits’ which made us look like the teletubbies – see attached photographic evidence. Hazel had to get rescued twice due to some initial teething problems with the concept of snorkelling. Somehow, she still loved it despite this!

We parted ways and we headed to Darwin, where we met our friend Dan. It is the wet season in the Northern Territory at the moment-the humidity was overwhelming. We had a road trip to Kakadu National park which we almost had to ourselves! We stayed there for 3 nights and explored the expanse that is Kakadu. It was incredibly lush and green and lots of the park is under water at the moment. We did as much walking as was possible, but we were limited due to flooded areas and the risk of meeting crocs! We did a sunrise and sunset river cruise, catching a glimpse of two crocodiles and loads of birdlife. En route back to Darwin we called into Litchfield National Park which complemented Kakadu nicely, especially as there are lovely waterfalls where you can swim. We didn’t risk it, however!

We returned to Melbourne for this weekend as we had Fi’s university friends Fi and Alasdair to visit. We went to the Australian Open and saw Tsonga, Isner, Cilic and Andy Murray....on the big screen(!) The highlight was the very close game of Isner versus Cilic-we were concerned at one stage it would rival Isner’s historic 70-plus set match from Wimbledon 2010! It was really good to have a weekend with Fi and Ally and also catch up with other Edinburgh medics, Sally and James.

We’re off to Uluru on Tuesday and then Fi returns to work next weekend. Dave will visit New Zealand before we head off to Japan. We are sad that our time in Australia is coming to a close, but very much looking forward to seeing family and friends again.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We hope you are surviving the cold British winter. We had our first sunny Christmas which was weird, as was being away from our friends and family, but the Butlers/Shields families had an amazing BBQ and made us feel very welcome. Fi also worked her first Christmas Day with the whole department full of festive cheer. Fi made 3 children cry after stitching/gluing them back together after they had injured themselves on new toys or due to excessive Christmas Day excitement!

Boxing Day was a great day again with the Butlers and some of the Shields as we made our way to the mighty MCG to see England bowl out the Aussies before tea for 98 and saw Cook/Strauss reach half centuries each. The final score was 157 without loss for England. It was the best day of cricket we’d ever seen and made lots of records including the lowest score for Australia ever at the MCG and the lowest ever score for Australia on home soil for over 78 years! Even Gail stayed until almost then end, despite her facebook declaration 10 minutes into the test- ‘when is lunch’?!

Our pre-Christmas trips included a weekend trip to the Grampian mountains in North West Victoria. We stayed in goldmine town Ballarat on the Friday night and then on the Saturday and Sunday morning we did some walking to the Zumsteins and the Pinnacles. The views were incredible. The weekend before Christmas we did a day trip to the Mornington Peninsula to swim with Dolphins and sea lions. It was a great day and saw lots of dolphins and sea lions, preferring (surprisingly) the ungainly, playful sea lions. The same weekend we had Dave’s school friend, Rob, and his girlfriend, Kaisa, over for a BBQ in our back garden. It was our first sunny BBQ!

Dave had his last day at Fosters on Christmas Eve (including a compulsory visit to the staff bar!). Dave did well, coming home donning bottles of wine, a cookbook, a T-shirt, chocolates and good luck notes. Fi only has 4 more shifts in December, 4 in January and 4 in February as the rest is annual leave!

We are very excited about the rest of our trip as it is mainly travel and reunions with UK friends and family. We are heading to Sydney for NYE with Alex Hargreaves and are looking forward to staying with his Aunt and Uncle and yachting around Sydney with them. On the 5^th January Fi’s Mum is arriving as a last minute decision and we are very excited about seeing her! We are all journeying to Cairns for 5 days, after showing her around our Melbourne for 5 days, coinciding with Fi’s university friends, Liv and Izzy, arriving. We then travel to Darwin where we will greet Daniel Bennett to celebrate (hopefully!) the end of his PhD with trips to Kakadu National Park and Uluru.

We are coming home so soon but much excitement prior to that! We arrive home on the 25^th February via Japan and look forward to seeing you all again soon,

Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you in 2011,

Love from Dave and Fi