Melbourne in a Day

Welcome to Melbourne,

I awoke at 5:30am which honestly wasn't that bad since I went to bed at about 9:30pm and started to fade immediately from when my head hit the pillow and the clovers were drawn up to my chin. It gave me a start to the day but let me be sure to point out that at 3pm as we were out to our adventures, I did start to die out and energy was leaking out of my body from every limb, at least that is how it felt.

Anyways, we started our day with a bowl of cereal... and a waiting game for mother and father to finish dinner back home so that we could go off on a quick Skype video chat which hopefully will teach Pops how to do it by now!
After our quick chat and gathering up the gear and the car started, we headed out to a gorgeous place on the planet: Warrandyte State Park.

Imagine for me the smell of gum trees, the ring of Kookaburra's talking back and forth in the air above your head and the sound of the rush of water flowing from beneath the canal that was once a gold mining area.
Here, specific rock is cut in specific ways to stop the flow of water moving too quickly therefore creating a greater chance of gold mining success. The sound was amazing, the smell more so and the Kookaburra's... well go online right now and order a ticket from wherever you are o Melbourne Australia and head to Warrandyte State Park and just sit on one of the plenty picnic benches and enjoy the sounds around you. Enjoy it, soak it in and never let it go, I won't.

After a beautiful climb over the rocks at Warrandyte State Park  which almost rendered Aunt Kim in for a cold drink, it was time to move on, farther up into the mountains towards a place of permanent nightmares so it seems now after the fact. We pulled into William Ricketts Sanctuary the home of - for lack of a better word - an old crazy kook of a man that was an eco-friendly nut case it seems, unwilling to destroy any form of the earth that was put there for a meaningful reason according to Rickett  so instead of cutting into or pulling away rocks and trees and mounds he simply created god-like sculptures depicting himself coexisting, creating, ruling and praising/being praised by many indigenous people of Australia. The old kook had decided to sculpt the world around himself with creepy heads that pop from rocks around the beautiful sanctuary, safe to say this place will surely haunt my dreams for many nights and probably some naps to come.

Due to Paul being afraid of the creepy children in the stone we decided to move on to the town of Olinda which took us higher into the mountains to the tourist town filled with shops and cafes, small mechanic shops and amazing bush houses pushed into the mountains with ease and beauty. Olinda was a fun place to spend a few hours on a warmer day maybe spending a nice nice sitting on the patio of a pub or café drinking tea, or beer... and enjoying the sounds of the bush around you or even the sight seeing and people watching from around the shops on the strip of road close by.

We stopped through a few shops, including having a near heart attack from a mimicking kangaroo toys that danced and squeaked back the sentences that you say to or around it. After a bit of a shop hop around we gathered back to the car and headed back down the mountain, about 40 minutes later we pulled into Aunt Kim and Uncle Dereks driveway, me somewhat ready for a nap or a full out pass out, but instead I settled for an extra jumper, slippers, a cold beer and a book which made me more cold with me super tired state.

After dinner we are all now sitting in the living room and after a shower I'm lucky I was able to punch out more then a "here... look" and then a few photos thrown on the page, so enjoy cause I'm tired and now I'm going to bed.
To everyone at home I love and miss you all and I'll try harder tomorrow to be more thorough and delicate in my approach but for now I'm too bloody tired to do a thing!

Night all

-A.G