Month: December 2016

Christmas in Ballarat 

It’s sunny, warm and mostly dry…not exactly your average Canadian Christmas but definitely your average Ballarat Christmas. We had a wonderful early Christmas dinner with a few of Margie’s family. The house was nicely decorated and we had a great turkey dinner. 

We’ve had such an amazing time staying with Matthew and Margie. We will miss them terribly and can’t wait for them to visit us next Oct.

It’s hard to believe that 3 months of traveling is over and Christmas is just around the corner. We fly home on Wed., Dec.7 at 11:25 am and with the time change, we’ll actually arrive in Toronto at 8pm (after about 24 hours traveling time). It sure will be great to see everyone when we get home😄.

A small portion of the lovely decorated house.
Evelyn is our resident reindeer😊.
A lovely day and we enjoyed the deck!
The Main Street of Ballarat has some cool decorations.
Flower reindeers – how cool is that!
A huge live Christmas tree.
I love these ornaments.
My Christmas star family!
We love Ballarat.

Ballarat comes alive at night with some awesome Christmas lights. Without snow you can really light up your property.🎄

This is our final post for phase 2 of our year off. Stay tuned for phase 3 –  sailing Bahamas style⛵️ – starting in the new year.

The Great Ocean Road

No visit to Victoria would be complete without a drive along the Great Ocean Road. We drove down to Warnambool and had a tour of Epworth’s new cancer centre (Epworth is the healthcare provider that Margie works for). It was very impressive and so new! We had a nice dinner with Margie’s sister Vicky and Vicky’s daughter. From Warnambool we drove east along the Great Ocean Road to our final destination – Kerry and Porky’s (Margie’s other sister and her husband) cabin in Apollo Bay. The drive along the ocean is amazing – such a different shore from the Sunshine Coast. It’s ruggedly beautiful even when it’s windy and cold. We had a great time in Apollo Bay and the cabin was lovely. 

We’re into our last week of our Australian visit. We’re celebrating Christmas on Sunday with a nice turkey dinner and then we’ll be on our way back to Toronto!

Evelyn and I are posing in front of the lighthouse at Port Fairy (just west of Warnambool).
The gang explore the water in Warnambool.
The Warnambool shoreline, definitely not Mooloolaba 😄

A close up of one of the “Apostles”.
The 12 apostles – or what’s left of them!
One of the amazing naturally eroded structures along the Great Ocean Road.

Mark and Matthew build rock towers on the rock beach near Apollo Bay.
Run before that rock tower gets you.
The eastern shore from the top of the Otway Lighthouse.
A view of the ocean from the top of the Otway Lighthouse.
A cute little wild koala hanging out at the Otway Lighthouse.