All posts by Sara

Mission Accomplished

Jon and I vacationed in Australia in 2011 and I always felt a nagging sense that we missed out on something. I am here today to let you know that nagging sense is completely gone now that we’ve seen…

Roo1Roo2

That’s right, not just one, but TWO kangaroos in the wild. I can’t explain how exciting this was for me. I am not sure why, but it was just fantastic and now I feel like I’m really having an Aussie experience.

Backing up a bit, Jon and I took a trip this past weekend to the Mornington Peninsula. Jon rented a car and managed to do a superb job of driving us around on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car all weekend.

Jon Driving

It took about an hour to drive to Mornington, the town we stayed in. We found a place to grab lunch in town and decided to head to Arthur’s Seat where I’d read we’d have a decent chance of seeing wildlife. We hiked the Arthur’s Seat circuit which allowed us to see these amazing views…

View from Albert's Seat

Against our better judgement, we ventured in this dark forest Scary Forest

to see what we could see. And we saw NOTHING. Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful,

ASHike

but NO roos, NO koalas, and thankfully no snakes. As I dejectedly walked back to the car, Jon got my attention and pointed out the best thing ever – a kangaroo in the wild! And then we realized there was another roo. Absolutely fantastic.

We’d already won the weekend, but decided to stay around anyway and checked into our lodging to celebrate. We stayed at the Mornington Bed and Breakfast which was fantastic. The view was even better than advertised and while the window between the bathroom and the bedroom was a little odd, putting down the curtain solved that problem.

BandBView BandBview2

We decided to check out God’s Kitchen, a restaurant and bar in a former church, a strange combination that somehow worked. We had a couple of good meat burgers for dinner and a couple of Sierra Nevadas to wash them down before settling in to watch whatever random movie was on TV.

The next day we enjoyed a home cooked breakie at the b&b and headed out along the coast to explore. We ended up in Point Nepean National Park where we hiked all the way out to the point with fantastic views along the way there and back.

Point Nepean Views

Point Neapan View
PointNeapanView2Point Neapan Jon Beach

Since we ended up hiking much more than originally planned, we decided we deserved a big lunch at the lovely Portsea Hotel followed by some scenic driving on the way to a pit stop at the Red Hill Brewery where we ran into a fellow wahoo – go figure!

The Portsea Hotel
The Portsea Hotel

That evening we decided to get Chinese food and found that the restaurant was BYO. We weren’t sure if that just meant wine or whatever. Fortunately, it was whatever, so we ventured up the street to buy beer and headed back for delicious Chinese food. I was about to order beef with chilli sauce. Luckily the waitress suggested I get rainbow beef instead. It turned out to be crispy beef which my Bowie pals will know well from Grace’s Fortune. So good! After that we decided to watch Young Guns from the b&b’s DVD collection – shockingly, it doesn’t hold up.

The next day we made our way back to the big city with Jon basically a total expert at driving on the wrong side now.

Stuff and Nonsense

2015-03-30 14.09.02

In my typical fashion, I managed to get sick within a few weeks of entering this foreign land. I had my first diagnosable (i.e. non- “common cold”) illness in a long time, an ear infection. Ack. It was awful, but luckily being in a country with socialized medicine has great perks. Even though I’m not working, I have a medicare card with which I was able to see a doctor on a Sunday afternoon, get a prescription and get it filled in less than 30 minutes. I’d probably still be waiting to see my doctor in Arlington. I’m on the mend and trying to enjoy my last week of unemployment…

… That’s right – I got a job! I start on 4 May and so wish me luck!

I haven’t been doing much since I’ve been sick, but Jon and I managed to get out of the apartment to celebrate Anzac Day (Australia’s version of memorial day) . We went to the Caulfield RSL (Australia’s version of the VFW) and took in the culture. The Caulfield RSL is quite the place and includes a full bar, restaurant, pokies (slot machines), a sports book and more. On Anzac day and only on Anzac day, an Aussie-invented game of chance called two-up is legal and enthusiastically played throughout Australia. Jon and I observed this custom which is quite entertaining, progressively so in fact which I attribute to the cumulative amount of beer consumed.

two-up on Anzac Day
two-up on Anzac Day

In other news, Jon shaved his head so those of you worried about where this hair thing was going can breathe a sigh of relief.

Angry Jon / Festive Jon
Angry Jon / Festive Jon