It's been nearly a week since i last posted! I can put the delay down to being generally massively busy and to be rather overwhelmed by my arrival in Australia. My hosts, My-Family-I-Never-New-Existed, have been amazingly generous with their time and keen to make me a member of the family. I think i felt at home in an instant. My first night consisted of being at a birthday dinner for one of Margarets friends. His friends were all round and the night consisted of lots of wine and watching a game of aussie rules football on tv - quite an introduction to Australia. Within a couple of hours of meeting them they were telling me to immigrate - and after my first trip into Melbourne i'm starting to think the same! At the moment i feel a bit like Cinderella finding her slipper. I arrived to familiar overcast skies ( i was actually shivering on my first day - it was freezing after a few days in Singapore) and a bumper - lets look at the family tree and get the family photos out session. In my time here i have completely forgotten i am on holiday. I was strolling down a street in the city, oblivious to being in Melbourne because at times it felt like London's shopping streets.

I went back into tourist mode yesterday and did a daytrip down the Great Ocean Road - something i have looked forward to for months. It was the first sunny day and was stunning. I saw koalas in the wild - a wonderful environment for my first viewing. We also walked through temperate rainforests and then hit the sites of the great rock formations along the coast. Amazing to stare out at a massive ocean and think that there is nothing between here and the arctic (or is it antarctic? i get confused). I met someone from kent who said she'd been told there had been 9 inches of snow in kent, IN SPRING! Hard to believe, and such a contrast to where we were standing. I can't believe i'm the other side of the world and have got here so quickly and easily - it has crushed my impression of a massive world and epic adventures!

I had a wonderful weekend winding down after my manic sessions in Japan and Singapore. I must admit i've not actually spent much time in Melbourne itself yet. Lauren and Diana took me out to Williamstown, a cute old place on the water that has a view of the Melbourne skyline. It was freezing and overcast but i could imagine how nice it would be in summer. So lovely to catch up with them after 2 years and to get a driving tour of their city. Margaret took me to church on the Sunday which was full of either ex-pats or England enthusiasts. Quite weird seeing pictures of the Queen in the tearoom. I started telling a joke about how i went to an Anglican church in Canada and was weirded out and amused by them singing God Save the Queen. I was all ready to chuckle at what i had found ridiculous but had to correct myself when the people around me exclaimed how lovely that was. I was even more perplexed to find these Australians were having to inform me that St George's day was next week! I am truly clueless. I know Christmas and birthdays and that's about it. I totally forgot Easter was this week! I was redeemed when Margaret brought her grandkids round (lovely girls, but a cyclone of activity - we had a gin and tonic when they left) and one of the girls asked her if Ash Wednesday was named after the bushfires. I think it was the other way around, and quite a few centuries ago! There were some nuts at the Great Ocean Road who tried to tell me that Noah built his ark here. I decided not to point out that the Middle East is thousands of miles away and simply nodded my interest and made a hasty departure - thank goodness for bus tours and their tight viewing schedules!

Today i'm going to Philip Island. I just want to see the cute little penguins that come out at night ("vicious buggers" according to one of my cousins) but i have to go through a whole day of Australian animal petting and hugging before i get to that bit. Ashley (the 3rd cousin) is coming along though. He is very Australian, so he is sure to make it a "hoot." He is full of aussie rules injuries, northern territories croc attacks and numerous near-death bushfire, cyclone, shark attacks and sports punch-up anecdotes. (you'd get on well with him, Pete) I expect to see a bloodbath when he takes me to an Aussie rules footie game tomorrow night. It should be quite an education in Melbourne sports culture.