Goat Life

Sunday was another gorgeous day and so an outing to Main Ridge Dairy for a goats cheese sampling was in order. The goats cheeses were spectacular - very delicately flavoured but so tasty. The goats are the main attraction, of course, and I loved how the dairy (in the tasting notes) referred to them as 'our girls'. Dessert was a well-loved Australian biscuit called a yo-yo - this version was exceptionally light shortbread sandwiching vanilla icing. I think I will have to do another blog post on the other famous Australian dessert - the lamington. We are also assiduously working our way through all the flavours of Tim Tams (chocolate biscuits) - the caramel ones are definitely our favourite. After lunch we went to the vineyard 10 Minutes By Tractor for a tasting. (This will no doubt feature in another blog past about how Australians say it like it is - why is this vineyard called 10 Minutes by Tractor? Because it takes 10 minutes by tractor to go between the different fields...) 

Hmmm... a blog post all about food and wine. Sounds about right to me...

Lunch and a glass of wine

Goats cheese tasting

Yo yos

The 'girls' in the field

You looking at me?

At over $100 a bottle perhaps the most expensive wine I've ever tasted

Enjoying our wine (with lovely friend Jo and her niece Beth)

We bought an amazing apple pie from the bakery Johnny Ripe for dessert that evening 

Portsea and More Surfing

Cue another surfing lesson with Josh on Friday, and Anna joined in this time. She also loved it, so all three girls are hooked. Josh did notice that the girls were very camera conscious and seemed more focused on presenting good poses for pictures on their boards than actually surfing... but they did make it look good.  So Toby has already purchased our own surf board to take around Australia in the van, which, in addition to the board we're going to borrow from our friends, means we'll be set to surf in some of the beautiful locations we're going to be going through.

Then Saturday - just a beautiful day of pure sunshine and a really pleasant 25 degrees - we courageously drove to Portsea on the very tip of the peninsula to check out the town, beach and snorkelling there. The snorkelling lesson with Toby was very useful because it was more challenging than the girls expected - there is technique to learn, especially when there's wind and current. I say 'courageously' because it was probably the last big day before the end of the school holidays so most of Melbourne seemed to have had the same idea - it was wall-to-wall cars along the road. Still - the beach still wasn't very crowded and we enjoyed seeing another cute (albeit much more touristy and rather chichi) town on the peninsula.

Heading in

Anna the Surfer

Indie had attitude

Surfer girls

Portsea beach

Toby in the water - the water was very clear although not much to see

Zoe - action girl

Portsea pier

Creepy Crawlies

Australia has finally delivered on some creepy crawlies. This pleasant little number crawled over the back of the sofa while we were watching the tennis (cue much screaming and excitement). Even our Aussie friends went, 'oooh' when they saw this picture. Supposedly its bite would feel like a bad wasp sting - so not lethal. Most Aussies seem to spray their houses (or pay to have their houses sprayed) against spiders, and we're thinking we'd better do the same to our camper van when we get it (without poisoning ourselves in the process of course...)
No doubt we'll see a few more before our trip is done...

Sunday in the Vineyards

People might be a bit confused as to why we are not actually in a camper van yet (big talk, right?). I promise you, a camper van is coming, but not until Feb 15th. Until then we are mainly staying in the beach house belonging to Toby's lovely friends Jo and Johnny, in Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula, which is a beautiful coastal region with lots of vineyards only about an hour outside of Melbourne. (Thank you again, Jo and Johnny.) We are using this time to find our feet and get to know Australia a bit. It's also proving useful to find the way into our homeschooling routine and improve our different systems. We're trying to do a bit of school work each day (as well as piano, art, blogging, typing, video making etc.) but we're trying to do that in the morning and head out every afternoon. Or vice versa (depending on tides etc.) We don't distinguish between week-ends and weekdays. The girls are loving learning to surf, and I'm loving the vineyards... expect to see a few more of them feature in the blog.  

So, for example, last Sunday was a beautiful day - and so was a perfect day to go and have lunch in a local vineyard. We met up with an old London rowing buddy who now lives in Melbourne. Scooby - OK, obviously a nickname from another part of his life so maybe I should say - Ian, his wife, Lisa, and their 5-year-old son Timmy drove down to meet us for lunch at the T'Gallant vineyard and an afternoon at the beach. T'Gallant had fabulous food, great wine (a nice prosecco anyone? Or maybe a chilled rose? OK, I had both), and a gorgeous view.  It was really good to catch up (after more than 12 years maybe?) and they are expecting baby #2 in a few short weeks so I think we fit into a small window of opportunity. We also went to another vineyard, Montalto, which had a beautiful sculpture park winding through the vineyard. The sun was HOT though - I think I need to do a whole blog post just devoted to the sun and sun screen. It's going to be a big preoccupation this holiday, and we keep discovering new parts of the body that we are forgetting to protect (back of the neck! Front of the neck! Tops of the feet! Tips of the ears!). I hope I don't ever have to give the title 'Sunburnt' to a blog post but I do fear it's just a matter of time...

The beach - Point Leo - was really busy but I think we saw it on one of the busiest days of the year. And even then it didn't feel too crowded. 

Here's to old friends

Lunch crowd

Ian and Lisa

Great view

Ooops

Mount Martha

We ran a few errands on the north side of the peninsula in Frankston (also known as 'Franga', in true Aussie fashion - shorten everything and add an 'o', an 'a' or a 'y') and stopped at Mount Martha, a little town on the Bay side, on the way back. The water is very clear on the Bay side, and while the beach huts were more like glorified sheds than the little kitchenette ones I'm used to in the UK, they were still very cute. This is Anna trying out her new shorty wetsuit.

Ready for action 

    

Any excuse for a boogie board for Zoe

Any excuse for shell gathering as well

Fish 'n' chips on the Beach

Last Wednesday, with more friends down from Melbourne for the Australia Day celebrations, we had fish'n'chips on Flinders beach (with good wine, natch) and watched the sun go down. Not bad for a week night... I think this Australian lifestyle is suiting us rather well.

There was even a table to use

The evening's entertainment

Indie on the beach

Happy Australia Day!

Thursday was Australia Day, and we celebrated in true Aussie fashion with a lamb and wine on the beach with friends from Melbourne. 

Most Aussies seem to view the day as just a good excuse to have a day off work to go to the beach, have a picnic, drink some beer and wine and maybe watch a few fireworks. Australia Day is also the day when a lot of new immigrants become citizens of Australia, and the Australian Government hands out honours and names the Australians of the Year awards etc. The date though - January 26th - has become controversial since it celebrates the actual day the first European settlers (Captain Arthur Phillips and his First Fleet ) arrived on the shores in 1788. Many now want Australia Day detached from the date since it celebrates the start of colonisation that had such a terrible impact on the indigenous people of Australia. There were quite a few protests in the big cities on the day. 

Still, without wading too much into the local political scene, we enjoyed celebrating Australia on Australia Day (and there's a lot to celebrate!) We focused on the positives. Toby made a short film about it too - you can see it here

 Australia Day video

Anna and Toby get into the spirit of things

Beach gathering

Rock pools

A lot of beach cricket is played here

Spot Zoe

A sand kangaroo seemed most appropriate for the day

The kangaroo also got into the spirit of the day