Swapping our 1950's sea plane for something a little more ordinary we flew to Melbourne the next day!! Sorry to say good bye (for now) to Sydney and the kindness Louise and Neil had extended to us but excited about the prospect of a new city and getting to see Laura's family!! Thankful to Neil for getting us to the airport on time having arisen a little too late and missing our train to the airport!!

Bridget and Peter were there to pick us up and we drove the hour down to Mount Martha to find out what a lucky couple of flash packers we had been!!

We were to stay in our own room with double bed in their beautiful holiday home an hours drive from Melbs, pool table and throwing distance from the beach which is exactly where we headed to to clear away cool of after our flight and lugging the heavy cases!!

Ben and Fleur joined us at the beach with the Lenni and Olive.

Was very proud of Laura who had a proper swim in shark infested waters (the first since arriving in oz some 2-3 weeks)!!

Peter did us a BBQ of steak that night which we washed down with some good wine
and Laura bonded with Lenni watching beauty and the beast engulfed in the big sofas at the house!! Something tells me Laura has seen it before as she seamed to know it word for word!!

Just as we were starting to feel settled in and away from the deadly spiders of Sydney, Lenni the three year old showed us the spider stuck in the door frame- it was the size of a terantula and had to be deadly great big hairy body and legs and nasty looking pincers but were assured this was non vminous!!??!! Something told me I wouldn't sleeping too well that night, although the three year old Lenni seemed alot less bothered!!

That morning Olive started showing her affection towards mike and his nose!!Every time she saw him she gave him a great big gummy grin, so cute!!but that morning wasn't all fun and games... the bad luck started with ben breaking the fruit bowl that auntie b had just safely transported all the way back from perth. Then as we were all about to go for a walk little leni fell off the portch and banged her head under the watchful supervision of team mclou...needless to say we felt awful poor likle thing had a real egg on her head! so bad things come in threes...what's next we thought!!

we went to a winery in yarra valley mike and laura tried a few of the local wines...very nice... yum yum!! The annual rain fall for the region managed to hold off till just after lunch. It wasn't till later that evening when little olive fell over and got a bloddy nose that we realised that the rain wasn't the third thing!