Holiday in Melbourne--Part 2

Sorry my last post was too long, and sadly this is too long too but I had to sum up of the rest of the week! Thursday (Day 4) I braved three kids alone in the city. We rode the tram (think of the trolleys in San Fransisco) around Melbourne and got some more sightseeing in.

The city circle goes in a square :-) and it is free; so you can hop on and hop off!

and then I took the kids to the Melbourne Museum.

Thomas and I outside the museum!

Stan met us there for lunch and afterwards we took the tram back and swam in the pool. Later that night, Stan and I went out to dinner on Lygon Street with my high school friends Candace and Wes and left the kids with a bbser. Only after dinner did I realize Candace, Wes and I were laughing our heads off and Stan was bored to tears hearing about people he didn't know! The street we went to eat at is famous for really good and reasonably priced food (http://www.melbourne.com.au/lygon.htm). The competition is fierce so the chefs stand outside of their restaurant and let you taste samples to coax you into their restaurant.

Friday we checked out and drove back along the coast (14 hours) back to Sydney. The dive is more scenic but 4 hours longer than the way we came down. The kids were borderline between bad and horrible. Olivia threw up in the car and the fighting did not stop. We made a lot of stops along the way. First we stopped in Snowy River (from the movie, the man from Snowy River) we got to see where the movie was filmed and then drove along the river until it went into the ocean. Here are some pictures!

Thomas and the Snowy River

Here is where the snowy river meets the ocean (not in the movie). We were the only ones there and it was perfect for clamming. We showed them where the bubbles where and they would dig them up with their hands.

Thomas and his belly button

my kids little foot prints!

After that stop we drove over to merimbula were we stayed the night. I am going to retire here by the way! The next morning we stopped over at Bateman's Bay (in my opinion it was way over rated)

I found this on the sand, bluebottle Jelly Fish...OUCH!

and then Jervis Bay--which was breath taking.

Jervic Bay has the whitest sand in Australia (think of fine snow but sand, and because the beach is so white the water looks aqua green/ blue). I was in awe and the whole thing is protected by a national park so you have to pay to get in but it is in immaculate condition! We saw a wallaby and snake on the trail up to this light house, and once up at the light house we saw a whale!

We will be coming back come summer as it was still a bit cold and windy even though it looked like paradise--the pictures don't do it justice!

We made it home Saturday night and had Sunday to recover, unpack and do laundry. We listened to conference during the drive and got every session done. From now on this is how I want to do conference weekend! It was great!!