More Oz

I love the Mornington Peninsula south-east of Melbourne. We spent about a week in Dromana in a cottage loaned by our friends Furry and the Purple Goddess (no those aren’t the names their parents gave them, but these names suit them ever so much better).

It’s a great place. On one side of the peninsula you have a string of towns on the bay (the front beaches), and on the other side – about 15-20 minutes away by car – you have the back beaches, the real beaches with rolling surf and crashing waves (that’s sort of repetitive isn’t it?). God, the smell of the ocean! There’s nothing like it. It’s depressing to think that it’ll probably be a year at least before I manage to get anywhere near the ocean again.

In the middle of the peninsula you have vineyards, galleries, even an English style tree maze. And of course, as it's quite agricultural numerous animals producing quality manure for sale… There were tons of signs announcing manure for sale – except they call it poo.

“Poo for sale. $1 a bag”

Or better yet: “Free Poo”

It’s bizarre it is.

So we spent a week pretty much zig zagging all over the peninsula in our zippy little Hyundai Excel (le sigh), tagged with Queensland plates (Queenslanders are the Newfies of Australia, their Belgians, their Danes).

As an aside, why do people think Sarah Jessica Parker is so hot? I’m watching Sex in the City as I type (I finally had a moment of enlightenment and realized that just because I’m not online at home doesn’t mean I can’t type up a post, copy it to a stick and post it the next morning thus freeing up my lunch hours – who says severe jet lag addles the brain? – but I digress). I find her highly overrated lookswise, but then who cares what I think – plus she has nothing to do with Australia.

Once we got back to Melbourne we spent the rest of our time (except for an excursion back to the sea on the other side of he bay) wandering around the city for hours at a time. East Melbourne and its beautiful houses. Saint Kilda beach and its really really weird Japanese tourists, and this place and that place and no place in particular. As far as I’m concerned it’s the best way to discover a city.

Our travel style has changed in the past years. Whereas before Mr. Jazz and I would leave for a month with a backpack and pretty much wander across a country, now we both prefer to basically crash somewhere and get to know the area well. So cool to discover the places tourists usually don’t go. That little restaurant hidden around the corner, the park just off that office building… and it’s nice to get back from vacation actually rested rather than more exhausted than when I left. Of course, we don't know Australia other than the state of Victoria and parts of Queensland but that's all good, I'd rather know one area well than a whole continent hardly at all. Damn, I’m getting old.

(Oh, and for the record, I'm getting the pics ready, they'll follow soon)