DAY 48 - 06/04/2010 - Frankston, VIC

We did pretty much nothing all day and I loved it. No site seeing or shopping. I just plodded around the caravan, updated this blog site, supervised the girls in Jumpyland and packed stuff away ready for tomorrow. Tonight is our last night here.

The highlight of the day is the delivery of our new inner spring mattress for the caravan. Fingers crossed it will do the trick and be extremely comfortable.

A family with a girl Taylah's age moved in next door. Her name is Alexia. Taylah and Alexia became friends very quickly and enjoyed playing all afternoon together with their DS's and UNO cards.

DAY 47 - 05/04/2010 - Frankston, VIC

Today we went for a drive to the other end of the Mornington Peninsula. We took a bbq picnic lunch with us. All we needed was a great posi, a bbq and a takeaway shop for our hot chips to have with lunch. We drove all the way to Sorrento first. We had been told by other travellers that Sorrento is very beautiful. True to their word it was. Sorrento is a very up market kind of town. Historic buildings and limestone mansions overlook the sidewalk cafes, boutiques and galleries along the main road. It reminds me of a smaller version of Port Douglas. There are people picnicing everywhere on the grassy area which overlooks the water. There are beautiful boats anchored in the harbour. Its a beautiful day and the water is glistening but there are no bbqs so we leave Sorrento and head towards Rosebud where we had seen bbqs earlier.

On our way back to Rosebud we found a nice little town called Rye. It is not as posh as Sorrento. There are an abundance of surf shops, cafes and fish and chip shops here. Rye seems to be a popular holiday destination in Victoria. Here there is also a large grass area overlooking the beautiful beach. We set up our picnic rug, Waz sparked up the bbq, Taylah and Lilly went off to check out the playground and Alicia and I went to the Shark Shack to get our hot chips.

After lunch we took ourselves to the beach. The water was calm and a beautiful shade of blue and the sand was powdery soft and white. The girls played with their sand toys and Waz and I relaxed on the beach. All was very calm and relaxing until Lilly decided to change that. She thought it would be fun to flick sand at us with her shovel. She thought it was hilarious. We didn't think so.

Rye Beach

Rye Beach

Rye Beach

Rye Beach

Rye Beach

This part of the peninsula is very pretty. It has a European feel about it. We actually felt like we were in another country.

Views from Mt Martha

Boat sheds on Dromana Beach

Watching the sun set over the water

DAY 46 - 04/04/2010 - Frankston, VIC

Today is Easter Sunday and the girls woke up to yummy chocy eggs from the Easter Bunny.

It was going to be a beautiful sunny day so we packed a picnic lunch and headed for St Kilda. We drove via  the coastline and saw parts of the Mornington Peninsula. My favourite beach along here would have to be Chelsea. We stopped to take a closer look. Chelsea Beach is absolutely beautiful. The sand is so white and the water light blue and clear. The waves are only very small and spill gently onto the sand. There are yachts sailing in the distance, someone on a jet ski and there are those pretty coloured beach huts set back from the beach which gives it that european feel. You could film a Spritzer ad here.

Chelsea Beach

                                      

A little further on is Brighton Beach which is also pretty and one I liked but the water is not as blue and the sand not as white as Chelsea but what appealed to me was it had a lot more of those multi coloured beach sheds, which gives the place so much charactor. The houses around Brighton Beach exude money money money. Old Victorian mansions and modern arcitectual designed masterpieces overlook the beach or dot the main drag thru Brighton which runs parallel to the beach.

   

Brighton Beach

We arrive in St Kilda and it appears that I wasn't the only person who thought spending Sunday here would be a great idea especially on a beautiful day like today. The place was packed.

Alicia and Taylah wanted to go to Luna Park. We have never been to a Luna Park before. You can walk thru for free and only pay for the rides you go on. Taylah didn't make the height restrictions for the more popular rides, all the line ups were huge and I was told they were experiencing mechanical delays on the main attraction being the roller coaster. Its not like we havn't been to a theme park before so we decided that the girls could pick a ride each and they chose the Ghost Train. They were anticipating a really scary ride but when they got off they wern't too impressed. Taylah thought the ride was boring.

                                              

  

Alicia and Taylah in the centre

We left Luna Park and strolled thru the popular St Kilda markets. Lots of art and craft and hand made jewellery stalls. I bought myself a pretty handmade silver bangle. There were some beautiful unique oil paintings that I woulld have liked to have bought but I have nowhere to put them at the moment.

From the markets we walked over the overpass to the esplanade. We found a good little posi on the grass for our picnic. We were adjacent to the boardwalk and the beach. The boardwalk was crowded with bike riders, roller bladers, joggers and walkers. Lilly decided that she would play frogger on the boardwalk. Then she thought she was a cat and was crawling around on all fours, meowing and licking the path. This was funny to watch. She had quite an audience who was also enjoying watching her dodge the traffic in human form and cat form.

Lilly enjoying a Dorito

 

View of the St Kilda Baths from the markets

There were people spilling out of the nearby cafe and pub. There were buskers everywhere and we later found out that the busking festival is currently on which explains that. Our favourite busker was this electric didgeridoo player who played very cool and very entertaining didgy dance music. The atmosphere here was awesome.

After our picnic we took a walk along the St Kilda Jetty. Apparently at the end of the jetty you can spot wild penguins on the rocks but this occurs around dusk and we weren't going to be here at that time. We thought we would walk to the end and see if we could chance an encounter with a penguin but we didn't. What we did see here is great views of the city skyline and the beach.

 

views of the city skyline from the jetty

DAY 45 - 03/04/2010 - Frankston, VIC

Today we drove to Belgrave to catch the Puffing Billy Steam Train. This train is over 100 years old. We will be getting off at Lakeside. This trip goes for 1 hour and 10 minutes one way. It travels thru the picturesque Dandenong Ranges.

As it turns out, Puffing Billy is a popular tourist attraction. We waited over an hour to get our tickets. The line up was long and slow. The cashier did not move in a great deal of hurry.

The train was filled to capacity. They had to add 6 additional carriages and another engine to carry everyone. Alicia, Taylah and Lilly sat on the side rail with their legs dangling over the side of the train. Apart from soot getting into their eyes they absolutely loved this part of the train ride. Lilly kept calling out "come on toot toot".

The train blew lots of steam and sounded its horn on many occasions. There were people on the side of the road waving to all of us as we rode by. My favourite part was when we went over the trestle bridge.

We got out at Lakeside and had a picnic lunch. The girls played happily in the playground with lots of other kids.

We caught the steam train back to Belgrave and drove home.

DAY 44 - 02/04/2010 - Frankston, VIC

Today we took the children to a place called Rain, Hayne & Shine Farmyard. A pretty clever name for a farm I think. They got to see, ride, hold, pat and feed lots of different farm animals. Taylah and Lilly enjoyed a pony ride. I'm not sure if Lilly fully enjoyed it. She look very excited when she first hopped on but by the end of her ride she looked nervous.

"no hands"

When I took this photo I asked Lilly to smile and she quietly wispered under her breath "help".

All 3 took turns feeding the baby calf with a bottle. Lilly thought this was pretty cool. She struggled holding the bottle up but with help from Alicia she managed to feed the calf.

                                               

                                               

They got to pat animals such as goats, donkeys, bunny's, pigs, chickens, guinea pigs and ponies. They spent most of the day in the chicken and bunny pen. They held the bunnys and the guinea pigs and fed the chickens grains. We also saw emus, rats, ferrets, cockatoos and dingos here but you couldn't pat these. They also had tractor rides throughout the day where kids sat on hay bales and got tractored around the farm.

                                     

                                     

By the end of their visit, Alicia and Taylah were catching and holding chickens. This was funny to watch. Taylah got really gutsy and caught a duck and also tried to catch a turkey but failed at turkey catching.

                             

Taylah with her prized catch of the day

We brought a picnic lunch with us and ate it in a vintage train carriage. The inside of the carriage had been converted to a dinette to be enjoyed by visitors to the farm.

It was a great experience for the girls to interact with farm animals. They had a great time.

When we returned back home we hired 2 billy carts for the girls to ride around the park for an hour. They have really missed their bikes and scooters.

                             

DAY 43 - 01/04/2010 - Frankston, VIC

School work in the morning and groceries after that. I bought way too many groceries and struggled to fit it all in. Still getting used to the small amount of fridge and freezer space.

The girls played in the Big 4 playground and jumping pillow all afternoon.

Having fun on the jumping pillow

Lilly was stoked with her new Dora movie and Taylah with her new DS game that we got today and we enjoyed the quiet time.

Later in the night we played some cards.

DAY 42 - 31/03/2010 - Coburg, VIC & Frankston, VIC

We left Coburg and drove south to Frankston which is situated on the Mornington Peninsula. We are staying here for 7 nights at the local Big 4.

The Big 4 is nothing too flash but its good enough. It has a small pool which I don't think we will use anyway because its not hot enough and a clay tennis court which you can't use unless it is hosed first and they're on tight water restrictions so thats also out. They do have these cool 4 wheel cart things that I am sure Alicia and Taylah will want to ride and a jumping pillow which is always popular. Lilly calls the pillow Jumpyland and she loves going to Jumpyland.

We took all 3 girls to the doctors as they are still coughing and it seems to be getting worse especially at night. Once we had our doctor visit and got our medicine we decided to take a drive thru the main city of Frankston.

Frankston is a nice looking bayside suburb. Apparently it used to have a pretty bad reputation but the local council has cleaned it all up. To us it looked fine. To the locals Frankston is known as Franggers. Lots of teenagers about tonight especially for a weeknight. There was a huge line up outside some sort of night club with a big sign announcing that some DJ was in town and tonight was the night he was playing.

We witnessed 3 cops bust a whole group of teenage girls and 1 boy in the one public handicapped toilet just metres away from the night club line. We were stopped in the street adjacent to the toilet. The police officer knocked on the door and said "police" there was a short delay then about 2 minutes later one girl came out, then another, then another until about 10 come out and then this short little teenage boy came out last. They looked so guilty. I am sure whatever they were doing in there probably got flushed down the toilet. The cops made them open their bags and they found what looked like a bottle of Passion Pop or something of the sort in one of the bags. What a find. I'm pretty sure all the other stuff is floating somewhere in the sewer under the city of Frankston or they ate it already. When he saw the bottle the copper said "hello, hello what do we have here". I was more embarresed for the copper than the girl who got busted. If you want to bust a group of teenagers in a public toilet you don't announce your the police. Idiot.

We headed back to camp, had dinner and played some uno.