Going South: Melbourne (Feb 16/17)

We were up before the roosters and Luca was looking at us thinking "what's going on here, I'm supposed to be waking them up" as we headed to the airport at quarter of five to catch the flying kangaroo south to Melbourne. The little guy took some serious entertaining on the plane but we got there, got our car and headed out on our first big family adventure (needless to say Kel was prepared with a bound book packed with printed sheets of all our reservations, maps, emergency numbers and shopping destinations she wanted to get to on the trip).

We haven't been to Melbourne since Kelly was in the morning sickness stage while expecting Luca and all that time I have been hanging out for a vanilla slice from Akland St, St Kilda - it was our first stop and I wasn't disappointed. After breaky we headed east to visit a couple of fabric stores Kel had had recommended to her by her blogging pals. I think Kel thought the stores were good, but to be honest Luca and I were just soaking up the warm weather and sunshine - something Sydney has not turned on this summer. It was actually cool to get out to the stores, they were in areas of Melbourne I hadn't been to before and I enjoyed having a sticky beak.

The rest of that day we did some catching up with our friends Adam and Amanda (who helped us enormously by loaning us their porta cot for the week) and Franc and Di. During our visits with both Luca managed to get himself soaking wet, first at a restaurant where he poured drinking water all over himself more than once and then at Franc and Di's house where Luca filled their daughter Sabrina's play kitchen sink with water and then splahed it everywhere. He had fun!

Sunday morning we headed up to Kelly's favourite, Brunetti off of Lygon Street in Carlton. We had a great breakfast and left with boxes full of Italian pastries.

Later we met Franc, Di and Sabrina again and headed out to Werribee open plain zoo. As I said in my last blog about Melbourne (April 2006), no trip to Melbourne would be complete without catching these guys, we have had some great times together over the years and I am so happy that Kelly has really connected with them as well. The zoo was pretty cool, I had expected to see the odd Kangaroo on the trip but not hippo's, rhino's, giraffe's and lions.

On our way back to Melbourne we stopped in at Williamstown for some Gelatto - we seriously had 50 places to choose from. I had never been to Williamstown, another side to Melbourne, and somewhere I would definitely visit again. We grabbed some Chinese take-away for dinner and Luca enjoyed exploring the hotel and then we all dozed off looking forward to the road trip part of the adventure starting tomorrow.