St. Kilda

We left the house with all our stuff at 6.20am on Monday morning and we eventually got to our next hostel at about 8pm! A long day spent on the train made bearable by the fact that I had a really good book! When we arrived in Melbourne we grabbed a taxi and headed down to St. Kilda. I think I had slightly overestimated St.Kilda, I had read that it was the 'beach part of Melbourne' and that there were great shops and cafes. With this in mind we booked to stay for 3 days before heading to Tasmania. Unfortunately there wasn't a great deal to do here and once we'd walked along the beach, the pier and the main shopping street we had done pretty much everything St. Kilda had to offer! This wasn't too much of a problem as we wanted to relax anyway which was easy to do in the hostel/guesthouse we stayed in. 'Olembia' was brilliant and very cosy with a 'drawing room' full of big armchairs, a fire, lots of magazines and books and a cat called Alex! It was easy to sit inside (away from the cloud and drizzle) and relax, reading, chatting and doing crosswords (not necessarily finishing them, but trying!!)

I think it was a mistake to stay so long as it would have been a nice day trip away from the city but not to worry. Yesterday morning we got the airport bus and got ourselves checked in for our flight to Launceston. Our bags were literally full to bursting point and this was shown in the fact that they were all overweight! We were only allowed 20kg for this flight but we're allowed more for the rest so I think we'll be ok.

The flight was nice and easy, once we'd been at cruising altitude for about 10 minutes we started to come down again, it's not very far at all! On arrival we were met by Anna-Marie (my friend Dan's mum) and taken to her new home. It really is a lovely place, and huge too. 3 double bedroom, a gym, a spa, massive open plan kitchen/lounge/dining room, a study, front and back verandas and 3 acres of land with 7 alpacas, 3 dogs and a load of chickens! There are also beautiful views of the hills and the Tamar River from the front (although not as I'm writing this, there is a nice thick covering of fog!!). I'm sure we'll easily be able to pass our short stay here, going round and seeing the beautiful countryside that Tasmania has to offer.