Jeez – we are slacking here down under. Over 2 months since we’ve posted anything. We haven’t really done anything that on its own would be considered “blog worthy”, but we have compiled quite a few smaller adventures that when combined reach that lofty threshold.

So, here’s what we’ve been up to since our road trip to South Australia.

Beach Day

We whinge quite a bit about the “summer” weather here in Melbourne.  But finally we came across a day (February 4th to be specific) where the Melbourne weather was suitable for a trip to the beach.  So, we packed up the Esky, strapped our backpack chairs on and headed to the train station.

It was easy to find a spot on the beach and just relax.  Getting in the water was even enjoyable. We even observed someone using a wooden spoon to put suntan lotion on their own back, so we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

On our way back home we decided to stop and see the famed “Brighton Beach Boxes” – that people pay upwards of $300K for.

They are neat to look at, and probably wonderful to have, but probably not worth that amount of money on a beach that has (in my humble opinion) maybe 10-15 good beach days a year.

International T20 Cricket @ the MCG

I think we’ve mentioned before that the T20 version of cricket is our favorite – since it fits into our 3 hour attention spans.  The other versions are “one day” which lasts about 8 hours and “test cricket” which played over 5 days.  No thanks!  We’ve been to a few KFC Big Bash League (what a name!) T20 games, but never to a proper international match.  So, when the Aussie international T20 team was going to play against Sri Lanka in Melbourne we wrangled up some mates and headed down to the ‘G.

Ultimately the Australian team lost on the last ball, which was sad, but very exciting to watch.  Of course, this being Melbourne, just a short time after our beach day it was practically a winter day once the sun went down and the wind tunnel effect of the ‘G picked up.

White Night

An annual event in Melbourne is White Night.  They light up all sorts of buildings with art and it is pretty neat.  Note we are wearing fleeces in the summer. It runs from sunset to sunrise, but being a couple of oldsters we made it out and back home before midnight.

Yarra Valley Beer Tour

For my birthday, friends of mine gave me a voucher for a beer tour.  Did you know we like beer?!  We met a small bus near the main Melbourne train station at 10am and headed about an hour to the northeast of Melbourne to the Yarra Valley.  Us and 9 new friends headed to various breweries and cideries to try all sorts of beers for the next 6 hours.

Ashlee’s 40th

Our friend Ashlee celebrated her 40th birthday in style by throwing an 80s themed birthday bash at a bar.  We’ve mentioned before how Aussies take their dress up parties seriously.  This was no exception.   It was a blast and I had an excuse to wear my fluoro.

Formula 1 Grand Prix

Every year, the Formula One season kicks off with a race in Melbourne.  We’ve never been to any sort of car race before and this one was a 15 minute walk from our house, so we went!  The cars are fast and loud.  We saw the F1 cars do practice laps and the V8 Supercars in a race.

That should about catch you up what we’ve been up to for the last few months.  I promise the next few months will be much more rewarding for blog lovers.  Our friend Jen is popping in for a visit so we’re meeting her on arrival in Sydney (in less than a week!) before she makes her way to Melbourne (via Cairns) just as I’m leaving to go to the US to visit family and play golf. Stay tuned!