My Melbourne trip...

My trip to Melbourne last month was to be present at my niece's wedding there. Given Melbourne's many fine surfing beaches, unsurprising, she and her (now) husband are surfing enthusiasts.

She spends so much time on the water that I swear she must have grown fins. Here's proof:

 
Okay, I cheated on that one... the pic above is taken from a newspaper wedding ad.

But the wedding was indeed held on a sandy beach -- my niece's favourite. And while the rest of us, including the groom, were decked out, with leather shoes that became sand-clogged, the bride, radiant in her wedding dress, was the smartest in the one comfy area that mattered most. Here's a pic of the bride:

  The beach was below a cliff, and a series of steps led the way down. The steps were wet, as it had rained earlier. I wonder if some folks were intimidated by this sign:

Anyway, just before the bride arrived, the sky started to darken again, and a strong wind came up. The three musicians huddled under the tent-top fretted about their precious instruments.

Fortunately, the weather held as the celebrant (akin to our Justice of the Peace) conducted a very meaningful Aussie-style civil marriage peppered with humour.

Then, as she said to the groom, "You may kiss the bride!", the skies decided to join in, and showered everyone with blessings -- drenching all and sundry as we scrambled back up the slippery steps to the cliff-top, where the parked cars were. I hope the musicians were all right; they had played gamely on as the pitter-patter turned into a heavy rain.

It was a wedding not to forget.

Before the Singapore contingent winged homeward, we decided to sightsee and drive along the Great Ocean Road to get to the Twelve Apostles (rock formations off the water's edge). We were thrilled to spot a koala and her cub enroute:

We also took pics of this common species of Aussie birds:

We clearly saw two at first and decided they were "cocka-twos". Then we spotted the third one:

Cocka-threes? (Hey, it was a long drive getting there, and we had to amuse ourselves!)

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An abalone story with a twist at the end

This insing.com story is about a Japanese couple who wandered into a restaurant here and were shocked by the four-figure bill they had to pay -- for just two abalones (one each) plus some ordinary food and wine. The twist? The abalones came from Japan!

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/tourists-charged-more-than-2-000-for-abalones/id-03383f00