St Kilda Festival

The St. Kilda Fesitival is an outdoor FREE Summer festival featuring music, dancing, food, drinks, and rides. This place is huge. Probably one of the biggest festivals I have seen, and it's free to get in. We got there and wandered around for a bit, and there were a few scattered clouds in the sky. We were there for about 2 hours then it started to poor rain so we headed over to a bar for shelter. Everyone had the same idea and bars were crowded to the max. So we just stood outside a bar under an awning to wait it out. We got pretty wet, then when it finally let up we started to walk around. We stop at this frozen yogurt place and we got a yogurt. If you guessed correctly on how much your yogurt weighed you got it for free. Well, I guessed mine right...woo hoo...so I got mine for FREE!

Scott being violated by a street performer:

At the festival we saw this big white tent that said Silent Disco Zone. We stood in line and we each got head phones and had three channels on it. As you head inside, it was a pretty funny site to see with people with head phones on and dancing around. You couldn't actually hear the music until you put your headphones on. There were 3 dj's playing different kinds of music and you could change the channel on your headphones to listen them one at a time. It was pretty cool.

Coke with Dad

Coke came up with a clever idea that has been going on for while now. Not sure how long its going to last, but nearly all of there cans say "Share a Coke with...(and the name of a person in larger letters). They have some many different names that you are bound to find one with your name on it and/or a person you know. I am not a huge Coke fan, but it tastes SO much better out here because they use real sugar cane, and not high fructose corn syrup. One afternoon we went to grab lunch with Courtney and I decided to order a Coke and look, mine says to Share a Coke with your Dad. So dad, this ones for you!!! Cheers!

1806 and Croft Institute

Scott and Courtney took us to this AWESOME bar called 1806. This is unlike any bar we have been too. It is a pretty small place, but has lots of character. Fun fact: It wasn't until 1806 that the word cocktail was first defined in print. They say you have to wait to be seated because they have a specific way of seating people. There cocktail menu is historically correct as possible and follows a time-line over the last two hundred years. All the drinks on the menu have a date, what's in it, and little history about the drink.

Hot spots in Melbourne are often hidden away and hard to find. Being in the know is how you find some good food and interesting places. A bar called the Croft Institue (no pictures for this one) is in the city down and alley passed some trash bins, around a couple of corners, then further down the alley. We don't have any pictures, but this took hidden to a whole new level. Pretty cool place though. I hear the ladies bathrooms is a bit weird with old hospital instruments in there, and a gurney (just a little creepy).

Portsea - Kayaking with the "Dolphins"

So we went down to Portsea to go kayaking with the dolphins...so we thought. We get in the water and head out. We stop every once in while to listen to our guide talk about the expensive houses on the cliffs and some other facts. Then we get to this beach area, get out and walk up to this look out spot. They gave us a granola bar, and a juice box, which was a nice little snack. We hung out for about 10-15 minutes and then got back in our kayaks and headed back in the direction we came. This whole time I'm thinking when are we going to see the dolphins. As we continued back we passed by the area where we started from, and kayaked for about another 5 minutes or so, then we stopped. Our guide proceeded to tell us that about 10 meters (10.9 yards for the non metric countries) in front of us was the "dolphin sanctuary" where the dolphins come to have there babies. They have them here because it's shallow and a pretty safe place they can leave them while the mom goes out to get them food to bring back and feed them. So needless to say, there were no dolphins, false advertising! After we sat around for a few more minutes we headed back. We were all pretty bummed that we didn't see any dolphins. Still hopeful though that I will get to swim with dolphins at some point on our trip.

Scott was so focused on the back of the car not hanging in the driveway he forgot to check the front of the car. Its hard to tell but he is not touching the car in front of him.

Queen Victoria Gardens

Open Air / Local Products / Farmers Markets all rolled into one are common in Australia, well at least in Melbourne. This is the largest in the southern hemisphere. Caught some traditional Australian Didgeridoo music here.

Melbourne CBD (Central Business District aka Downtown)

We took a self guided tour to the Queen Victoria Gardens which included the Shrine of Remembrance.

The Shrine of Rememberance is located in Melbourne and is dedicated to those who lost there lives in World War I (1914-18), as well as the men, women, and children who were at home during this time. We highly recommend visiting if you have the chance to come to Australia.

David (guy on the right) we met in Fiji. He guided us with his self guided tour pamphlet. He is from Canada and he too has come to Australia on the 1 year work/holiday visa.

Australian Open

The six of us took the train over to the Australian Open. It was a very HOT day! We stayed around for a couple of hours watched a handful of matches. We would have probably stayed longer, but there was not much shade and the heat was quickly draining us of our energy.

Didn't know who she was at the time, but this China hopeful Na Li, ranked 6.

Found shade!

Former number ones from back in the day, Martina Navratalova and Martina Hingis.

Get your tickets to the gun show.

Ozzie Land Day 1

We landed in Australia and Scott and Courtney picked us up and let us stay with them for a bit. The first night we did the most Australian things we could think of, set a Jenga record (stacked 36 levels high) and ate Kangaroo for dinner. It was delicious and tastes like steak. Alicia was not an instant fan.