Back to school

We thought we’d give touring the island a break and try some Balinese cooking

After half a day of squeezing limes, chopping chillies and crushing ginger, we ended up with loads of ideas and pretty full tummies too. Here’s some of the highlights

Veggie salad (Sayur Urab), Tuna steaks with fresh chilli topping (Tuna Sambal Matah)

Satay on Lemongrass skewers (Sate Lilit) & Balinese Curry (Opur Ayam)

Sweet Chilli Prawns (Sambal Goreng Udan)

Archie is still struggling to get much of his own food (Pumpkin & Peas) into his mouth…

Perhaps he’s being distracted by the surroundings

Exploring Bali

Well it’s almost our last stop on the tour and thought we’d try out one of the great Aussie holiday destinations of Bali. We’ve started off our stay here in the rice fields of Ubud. At the Balam Bali Villas. and yes it really does look like that.
We thought we would do the appropriately touristy thing and do lots of sight seeing.
Bali is packed to the rafters with temples so thought that a good place to start with seeing some of them.

Tanah Lot the temple by the sea.

What you won’t see are the hoards of chinese tourists taking pictures of Archie as well

The traditional village

The water temple

It's the Balinese equivalent of the Ganges

The volcano…

What we saw

what we should have seen

Now anyone who hasn’t been to Bali in a while or never at all will not believe the amount of traffic on the roads. Taking over an hour to travel about 10 km!!

So after a couple of days spent touristing and spending most of it in a van we decided to knock it down a pace and spend some time at our lovely villa not leaving for a whole day

…..now that’s the Bali we like!

Beware the ‘drop bears’

Having been living it up in Melbourne town, we headed out north to Shepparton – famous for cows, fruit, And (Great) Uncle Dennis and Auntie Marilla

Not only did we have glorious weather, but we were treated to beautiful food, and tea from one of Dennis’ prized possessions which he emigrated with from Ireland many moons ago

getting some walking practice done

There are plenty of animals about too


Archie wasn’t so sure about the croc, while mummy was winding up the snakes

..but she didn't go anywhere near the bats!!

  Galahs...Commonly found out here and Clapham Common

Jenny really wanted to see Koalas, but all the real ones were sleeping in the trees, so our best photo is of this stuffed one.
- Plus this fake one

...and Koalas weren't the only fake animals Shep had to offer.

 We're now making the slow trip homeward bound, there's not long left of our trip but there's lots for Archie to do and see on our way back.

Melbourne

We headed back closer into town to stay with Cousin Vanessa and Josh in trendy Preston – check out the view from their flat…

We got a chance to check out some more of central Melbourne…

Archie tried out playing on a swing for the first time, saw some of the local artwork, and the Victoria Market with loads of yummy food.

The ACMI (Aussie Centre for the Moving Image) was very cool – Archie tried out some matrix moves with Dad…

Distant Family part 1

One of the main reasons to travel all this way was to catch up with distant uncles & cousins down under. After the Smiths in Sydney, we're visiting the Macauleys in Melbourne



Thomas, Maddy and Piper were all so much fun to hang out with, and loved playing with Archie. We also went to the fair

Archie is starting to look more and more like his Gdad

Melbourne

Changing from rural New Zealand back to the busyness of a big city has meant little time for blogging again!

Walking around Melbourne, it's impossible to miss all the sports grounds around. Last weekend was also one of the biggest sporting weekends here...

Formula 1 was in town...

Lewis was running along the river

Jenson was zipping round the track

Pete was loving seeing two Lotus teams on the grid

Archie didn't really appreciate just how impressively loud F1 cars are

But out here, F1 is a sideshow compared to the opening weekend of AFL - Aussie Rules

Pete didn't take this photo, but loved how similar it is to Ultimate... with more fighting :o)

We saw the Melbourne Demons vs the Sydney Swans - it was a draw, which is really rare.. but what really impressed was the stadium - the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground)

After England retained the Ashes here in December, it seems that the Aussies have abandoned cricket and are playing a game they can't loose to the Poms at instead...