Arrived in the city that my cousin Lucinda lives in with the lovely Ben. Wedding Bells Jul 27th. Oh my goodness what a sight for sore eyes at the airport there she was – I was delayed and it was late just so surreal and so lovely to see Lu. She had a very welcome chilli waiting for me at home too, yummy. Met the lovely Ruthie what a sweet dog we were friends immediately 🙂

Tuesday: Ben & Lu up early, I spent the morning doing my laundry and having a nice time with Ruthie, Yarraville is just the loveliest suburbs west of the city. I just loved walking through it and went down into the village and had a light brunch before I headed into the city where I did a tram tour of the city, and had a nice glass of pinot on a floating barge. Melbourne as a city is not as compelling as Perth, however, Lou, Ben. & I went out for dinner and suddenly I was a convert!

Top tip – get a train pass Lu lent me hers – easy to top up and the trains/trams are cheap as chips and the central ones are free!

Wednesday: Storms forecast and when I say storms I mean storms! Also, a one day strike on the Vline – note to travellers – always check in case there is strike action if it wasn’t for Lu I would have been sitting at the station for 2 hrs for nothing! The Plan for today was to go up to places the names of which I have heard all my life like Traralgon & Warragul were suddenly going to be reality. I was so lucky it only rained when I was under cover and dry when out and about.

So a bit of background for non family members – my Grandad was one of 10 only 5 survived all boys all big men over 6 feet tall, James and Alexander emigrated to Australia and William (my Grandad) and his twin brothers (who were amazing Characters 10 yrs younger) David & Johnny remained in NI, My great grandfather quite a man in his day and in a post war recession managed to purchase two farms for the twins Ballymenoch (Holywood) & Ballyhenny (Newtownards) whilst keeping the Home farm at Lisleen where my Uncle James and cousin Jonathan continue to farm. Uncle Alec’s family ended up in Melbourne, and cleared bush and continue to farm here, I was looking forward to meeting Billy for the first time apparently he is so like Granda, however, rail strikes and thunder storms prevented that.

Uncle James stayed in Perth and his son John is still there unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to meet John & Brenda.

I set off later than planned due to the rail strikes at 7.45 am and eventually got to Warragul at 11.15 am to such a lovely warm welcome from Win, our family are definitely feeders to start with tea and home made yum yum’s the off we went for the most amazing drive through the countryside and mountains, Noojee Trestle Bridge, Lunch with the cheeky Kookaburra’s on guard at Noojee Pub the onto a beautiful wall at Torongo Falls. My pics do not do it justice folks.

Back for a cuppa with Win and home made barn brack warm with butter just as her mother had made it. Oh how our history defines us. I FaceTime’d with Trevor and his wife I hadn’t spoken to Trevor since 1975 when I was 8 years old – lol so now you know folks!

The journey back was much more like the thing only took me 2.5 hours and Ben was cooking Red Snapper two different ways one Lemon based and the 2nd Asian based with 3 different amazing salads with sous chef Lu under command lol 🙂 both amazing btw. A- MAZ-ING! How lucky am I? And while the snapper does not look happy they did not die in vain they were delicious.

Bed and early start to Tasmania tomorrow 🙂