Victoria

Well, I'm writing this from Tassie, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that super speedy broadband I hear they have in the UK. So far I've written it 4 times.

I had my little Tour de Victoria holiday with Mum and Dad, and if it wasn't quite the end of the red centre adventure that I'd planned, well, it was still very pleasant.

Started in historic Ballarat, staying with Colin and Margaret. No the baby is not mine: the lovely Lily is my fourth cousin.

Next on to Halls Gap in the Grampions, which was mostly still completely burnt out from the massive fires in Janary and February, even if this picture doesn't show it. I found myself taking lots of pictures of gum trees (hmm, do they have them in the UK?), but I promise I won't bore you with too many. This is mum and me on a morning walk.

We just dipped into SA at Mt Gambier, where there were more spectacular caves (as good as WA's? Well, I'm not buying into that sort of debate.), fireworks, resident possums and dangerous toilets.

There was also the famous Blue Lake, but for reasons unknown I forgot to take a photo of that, even though it was at it's most delicious blue. My holiday brain's only functioning sporadically - I hope it comes back to where it belong's when I start work again. Sheer weight of credit card pressure should help speed it's return.

Warrnambool - cold, pretty, windy as all hell.....

... and notable for the great civic works created by my ancestor, A. Dudley Dobson (think C.Y. O'Connor if you're from Peth and willing to believe me :) - Arthur's pass if you've been to NZ.) Aha, so this is where I must get my engineering genes from.