by Aine

Melbourne is one big spread out city.  Really big.
 
We stayed in the city centre or CBD as they call it here (Central Business District).
 
One of the positive things in that area is the free shuttle bus which takes people around the city to the various places of interest. There’s also a free tram to do the same. So we duly hopped on and off at our leisure discovering places like the Botanic Gardens which house the Shrine of Remembrance which is Victoria’s memorial to the service and sacrifice of its men and women in times of conflict. The gardens also feature an award winning visitor centre. Nearby are the formal parklands of Kings Domain, Government House and Le Trobe’s Cottage. We also visited Chinatown and Federation Square. The latter is the place to glean all the tourist info and also to book shows, (Hairspray and Mary Poppins were running while we were there.)

 
Melbourne gaol was a must see as this is where the infamous Ned Kelly was hung. The gaol detailed the infamous outlaw’s life well using photos and artefacts. The entrance to the gaol features a verse from “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde.  The tour was very interesting but I found it incredibly sad to read of the many Irish who had been detained there for some petty and not-so-petty offences. It seemed that when the Irish were sent to Australia for some minor breach of the law, they were met with no better fate in their adopted homeland, in those days you could be jailed for not having a fixed abode or being drunk Treatment was harsh at the jail as you could get extra time on your sentence for being discourteous to a warder or for throwing bread on the floor. 
 
On Sunday we paid a visit to the Victoria Market (told you I had a thing about food markets.)  This market didn’t disappoint either, and I bought bread, cheese, plums, strawberries etc.  But its not just a food market, it also sells plants, clothes, flowers, authentic Australian souvenirs, and much much more……….even live hens!

 (Didn’t buy one of those, just the eggs!) The market is a historic landmark and major tourist attraction, it’s over 125 years old and serves the needs of over 200,000 shoppers per week! I think they were all there last Sunday when I was there!
 
Got the tram out to St. Kilda.  Heard a lot about this place but found it disappointing. A bit decrepit, hippie-era and bohemian for me. The beach was unimpressive. However I did find a place the sold the most gorgeous monster prawns and other seafood, and the cake shops on the main drag were a joy to behold. Shop after shop with their windows filled with every kind of confection of cream, chocolate, pastry, fruit, custard, the choice was staggering but I did manage to contain myself to a selection of a mere three!
 
The weather is Melbourne hasn’t  been great, lots of heavy rain while we’ve been here. The shopping here is amazing and of course the January sales are on so bargains abound! Melbourne is also where I said goodbye for another year to my daughter as she flew back to Queensland and back to work. That was tough.
 
The floods in Queensland and Brisbane are dominating the news here, as you can imagine. They are staggering, and came very close to where my daughter works and lives but thankfully she was lucky though she tells me no food supplies can get into her town and the phone lines are down.  So many more people were not so lucky, with people literally being swept away with the torrents of water. So many homes destroyed.  It’s hard to comprehend the enormity of the situation. A terrible tragedy. But Australians are made of tough stuff and already seem to be rallying in the face of this huge challange. Best of luck to them.

by Grainne 

Aine’s had the sad task this week of saying goodbye to her daughter, who joined her for a week on her travels, but has had to head back now to the part of Australia she works and lives in, while Aine continues her holiday in New Zealand.  She reckons her youngest daughter will make her life in Australia now, and the prospect of her being so far away, when she returns home to Ireland, makes her sad. 

The parents of another young woman are also trying to come to terms with the loss of their beloved daughter.  But in their case their loss is all the more profound for the heart achingly tragic circumstances in which it came about. 

    The brutal and senseless murder of Michaela Harte has shocked everyone.  A beautiful young woman, on her honeymoon, on the paradise island of Mauritius.  So much to live for.  So much going for her, beautiful, talented, loved and cherished by her new husband, parents, brothers, family, and so many others.  And the daughter of a man so known for his great humanity and compassion.  It beggars belief that such a tragedy could be visited upon him and his family.

Emigration is set to continue in this country, as we leach our youngest and brightest.  There will be many tears shed at airports, many poignant moments when mothers and fathers watch their sons and daughters depart, full of hope and expectation, to carve out careers and lives in countries, far and some not so far, from home.  Few parents would disagree with their children’s decision to go when there is little hope and little to be confident about in the next few years in this country.  That won’t make the parting any easier of course.  But the finality of the awful loss suffered by Mickey and Marian Harte this week  puts perspective on it.

 By Aine

Left Adelaide to travel the Great Ocean Road. Luckily there were three of us to share the driving! It was worth the long drive though, with the most amazing views around every bend, we had to make numerous stops at the best vantage points to get photographs, and to walk the magnificent white sandy beaches, not to mention stopping at each little quaint town and village along the way for sustenance in the form of coffee, ice-cream, water, etc.

We stopped at the famous ‘Twelve Apostles’  site which is the Great Ocean Road’s major attraction, a string of limestone stacks that lies just off shore of Port Campbell National Park. They apparently were part of the cliffs until wind and water carved them into their present shape and left them stranded in the wild surf. There are in fact only eight apostles remaining – another one recently tumbled into the surf.

On our first night on the Great Ocean Road we stayed in a quaint little town called ‘Port Fairy’. It really was like going back in time. Once the centre for the whaling industry, it now relies on its old world charm to bring in the tourists, and has a lovely beach. 
Night two was spent in Apollo Bay, but we didn’t realise how busy this little place was going to be and found it hard to get a place to stay for the night. After paying $180 for ‘budget accommodation’ we quickly went and got our money back and fled, as it turned out to be a right hellhole. We did, however, manage to acquire the last remaining rooms in the Sandpiper Motel, a nice modern, bright motel with good facilities, crisp white sheets and air-conditioning. Phew!

Apollo Bay has a fantastic beach, and a bustling town promenade with lots of little speciality shops and cafes. A nice place to stop over and dine on the seafront,  sipping wine and watching the world go by.

Headed for Melbourne next morning passing through Lorne, Torquay andGeelong.
When we got to our apartment there was a mix up with the booking, so after a bit of argy-bargy with the manager he decided to upgrade us to compensate! Happy days! We danced with delight when we saw our ‘suite’ . It was on the 19th floor with amazing views over the city of Melbourne.  We had two double en-suite rooms with walk in wardrobes, full kitchen facilities, plasma T.V. screens in each room and a large sitting room. The kindly manager’s name was Harry and boy was I happy to have met him!

Will check in again with you soon, to update you on my travels, but for now I’ll bid you G’day.

by Grainne

One of my (now adult) children has a predisposition towards the ‘glass half empty philosophy’.  He tends to think in the negative, rather than see the positive side of things.  When he was younger I used to try cajole him out of this way of thinking by getting him, before launching into a litany of what was wrong, to list what was right, to see if he could identify a couple of good things that had happened to him that day.  At first I’d get only a grumbled “nothing” in response but, with further coaxing, he’d offer up the odd positive happening.

I was reminded of this over new year’s, when I announced to all and sundry that 2010 had been an unpleasant and difficult year, in a variety of ways, and that I was glad to see the back of it.  And it is true to say there were difficult times, sadness and unpleasant occurrences.  But then I chided myself, remembering my efforts to get my son to recognise the good that happened and not to always be concentrating on the bed.  And there were some really good times last year.  In particular, some memorable and really enjoyable weekends away with sister Aine which included two weekends in London where we did the touristy thing, savoured the sights, sounds and tastes, explored to our hearts content and generally had a ball.  Another really pleasant shared trip was a weekend in Achill in July when glorious weather combined with the fabulous scenery to make it a break to remember.

The June Bank Holiday weekend was a fun-filled one, spent at the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival in Kilkenny with family.  In July the weather obliged with plenty of sun on the day of a family barbecue that brought loads of us together at my house.  Also in July a week spent in Galway in the company of my young nieces and grand-nieces was thoroughly enjoyable.  A September wedding in Manchester made for another laughter-packed weekend.

Various other family occasions made additions to my store cupboard of good memories.

Aine and I launched the website of course, a highlight of my year and the fulfilment of a long-held dream.

2010 also made me value four very close women friends and savour the times we met up.

The good didn’t outweigh the bad for me in what turned out to be my very own ‘annus horribilis’ but it’s all too easy to dwell on the bad.  Another thing that helped keep things in perspective was the number of family members, friends and colleagues who had much worse to deal with, including loss of livelihoods and income, serious illness and bereavement.

Much is made of the benefits of positive thinking and a positive attitude has been my own default position throughout most of my life.  It has served me well.  There are times though when it can be hard to summon.   The start of a new year is a good place to try, at least.

I hope the new year is good to all of you, our loyal readers.

by Aine

Got to Adelaide, just about, as the taxi driver that brought us from the airport was as unfamiliar with Adelaide as we were. Think he had only arrived himself in the country a couple of hours prior to our arrival.  With appalling English, he could not understand where we wanted to go, despite me showing him the correct address (it was right in the city centre so he should have known) of the apartment complete with area codes etc.  He had a GPS system but seemed to not fully comprehend how it operated.  When we finally did get to our apartment, he seemed visibly upset at the lack of a tip!
 
Started our first day in Adelaide with a visit to the South Australia museum which is home to the world’s finest and most extensive Aboriginal collection. The museum is vast, offering six floors of exhibits, and there is something of interest there for young and old. Right alongside the museum was the Art Gallery which boasts a fine display of Australian colonial art amongst its collections.  It also houses the renowned dot paintings of the Western Desert. The museum has an impressive collection of Australian/Asian/ European and contemporary art. Both the museum and art gallery are free to the public.
 
All this culture was making me hungry so we stopped off at a wonderful little patisserie, called Bread-Top on King William Street. . Had the best (mug) of proper tea in a while and could not choose between all the delicious pastries on display so selected several to share with my partner in crime/hubby. Heaven on a plate!!
 
We decided that the day should not end there and took the tram from King William Street out to the beach about twenty minutes away at Glenelg.  Another long white sandy beach and warm Indian ocean waters to cool down the feet after a long day of walking around the city.
 
The town of Glenelg was only just coming alive as we were leaving so we vowed to go back again to swim and sunbathe and catch a bit of the atmosphere the next day.
 
Day two of Adelaide started off with a trip to Central Market. You’ll probably have noticed by now that I have a thing about markets, especially food markets and have to check them out any time I go to a new city. Central Market in Adelaide did not disappoint. Choc-a-bloc with food, everything from cheese and vegetables to fruit, meat, nuts, grains, flowers, honey and jams, to name but some.  Also stalls selling food to go, delicious slices of pizza, Chinese food, fresh breads, cakes etc.
I thought I had died and gone to heaven and could happily have spent all day there just admiring the big Parma hams hanging from hooks, the little possums, so small they had six in a pack, kangaroo meat, and some food so exotic that I just didn’t recognise. Happy days!
 
So folks, I must leave you now and head out of town to the beach, with my beach towel and picnic in my back pack. Oh yes! I meant to admit to you that although I named my original piece “Travels of a Middle-Aged Backpacker” I’m not a back-packer by any stretch of the imagination! Middle age prevents me from sharing some dingy hostel dormitory with cruddy backpackers. I’ve worked too hard all my life to endure that at this stage of my life and need all the luxury my poor old Euro can get me. So, a nice air-conditioned apartment, with proper bed and crisp linen, cooking facilities, balcony and proper shower is a must.

You’ll have heard Queensland is suffering terrible flooding at present, its affected plans our daughter has to join us, she’s had to fly up to meet us, instead of journeying by road which is completely cut off.  It’s little hardship though compared to the loss of homes, property and business that a lot of unfortunate people there are experiencing.
 
I bid you all G’day mates now to continue my holiday experience.

by Aine

G’day people, and greetings from Ascot and the Perth Cup.  

Picture the scene;  its New Years Day and Perth’s premier racing fixture is on. Its like a heady mix of the Galway races and the Curragh on Derby day rolled into one with 40 degree heat thrown in for good measure. The style is amazing, lots of little shift dresses (too hot for anything else) and fascinating headgear. In fact the shorter the dresses the bigger the fascinators!!!!

I’ve noticed that the Aussies do love their beer. I do believe our reputation pales in comparasion judging by what I witnessed today. Young ladies carrying around their bottles of wine in buckets of ice, the lads with their buckets of beer, lots of raucous shennanigans, but great fun for me as a number one people watcher, who was safely enconsed in the stand (slathered in factor 30 – but I still had to get in out of the sun!)

If I was at home I’d probably be sweating over a hot stove cooking for assorted family and friends, this year it was nice to sweat in the sun, at the races.

On the way home we decided to try a Korean restaurant (now no jokes about unusual menu items please!)

Food was lovely, very different, I love trying new food, but it was a little surreal to have ‘O Holy Night’blaring out from the speaker in the back ground!

We are leaving Perth tomorrow for Adelaide. Overall impression of Perth is that it’s a beautiful city, expensive, more hobos that I expected, did’nt always feel that safe walking around at night, had to really search hard for  nice places to eat (rather than just the ubiquitious chips with everything kind of places.) Found the natives loud, self assured and they could do with a few lessons in manners.

Absoloutely loved Kings Park with the plaques on the trees commemorating the Australians killed  in the World wars, and the Western Australians killed in the bombings in Bali.  Loved the views from Kings Park and the magnificent Botanic Gardens. Loved Freemantle, with its old style colonial buildings and fabulous eateries. Enjoyed taking the train to Cottlesloe beach and walking in the warm waters of the Indian ocean.

It wa a nice  relaxing start to our holidays.

I’ll check in again with you all soon.