Brisbane & Goldcoast

Last week we had been to Brisbane and Gold Coast for few days. Since moving to Australia in Dec 2010 this has been our first vacation.P had a seminar to attend in Brisbane and I went along with him , thought it would be welcome break for both of us from the cold winter weather of Geelong. P had been busy with seminar but we still managed to do some sightseeing on the last day in Brisbane.

From what I had read about Brisbane I knew it was a big city and we were pleasantly surprised by the number of residential high rise buildings we saw.It immediately reminded us of our stay in Singapore. It was almost like being in Singapore with similar tropical trees and big buildings with nice swimming pools and all. The weather had been nice and warm during the day but come evening it used to get cooler. Anyway we made the most of our stay in Brisbane,visited the Brisbane CBD on Friday evening before heading to Gold coast on Saturday morning.

Gold coast is a mere 1 hr drive from Brisbane so we rented a car and drove down to Gold coast.The moment you enter Gold coast you are taken by the festive holiday atmosphere of the place.You can see palm tree lined streets with tall buildings on one side and the beach on the other side, holiday goers walking down the streets. enjoying the nice warm weather, eating their hearts content and lazing around the beach. Atleast this is what we did.In all it was good break for us from the daily routine.

Other than the sun soaked beaches the next most popular thing in Gold coast are the theme parks.With many theme parks to choose from we decided to visit two of them, as we had just one more day to go. We visited the Sea world and the Movieworld, both were equally good and we got chance to look at some of famous 'Warner Brother' character's like Batman ,the joker.In all it was fun filled 2 days at the Goldcoast and since we liked it so much we are very much looking to visiting it again.

Easter-Anzac day weekend....So now comes winter

The Easter weekend was a long weekend here,from Friday to Wednesday.Easter holidays were followed by the Anzac Day holiday hence the long weekend.Anzac day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. With this being the last long weekend before winter starts we decided to make the most of it.We went for a lot of long drives in and around melbourne and the weather was just perfect.We were able to visit "Dandenong ranges national Park" just east of melbourne  and see the fall colors.

Next we went to the " Great Ocean Road" it is one of the most beautiful scenic drives along the ocean in  the world.There are lots of places along this road where you can stop and enjoy the vastness and the different colors of the ocean.But the best were the "12 Apostles",these are huge limestone rock formations in the ocean and they really form a panoramic view.It was one really breathtaking experience and as someone said it is like heaven on earth.

Australia at its best....Few places we visited in our 4 months stay here

It has been just 4 months since we moved to Australia and I am already loving it here.We came during the best of the season, in December when  summer was just about to start. Australia has a lot of long weekends during the summer time, so we made good use of it to visit a few places around Geelong.The beaches along the "Great Ocean Road" have Crystal clear blue water. Then we also visited Melbourne city.This city is reminiscent of Victoria era with lots Victorian style buildings. Mounted with my camera  I managed to take a lot of snaps and here our a few of my favorites for you to enjoy.

Torquay

Victorian style Church in Melbourne CBD

The ever busy Flinder's Street-Melbourne CBD

Point Lonsdale

One more pristine beach at Point Lonsdale along the Great Ocean Road

Weekend cleaning..

This weekend we did  just some cleaning up of the house and cleaning of the closet.With Autumn having started, its time to get ready for the winter.So packed all the summer clothes to be put away in a suitcase till next the summer.Checked on the few winter clothes we had and then went out shopping and got myself a nice Trench Coat.Looking forward to some nice winter times.

Australia-Down Under

Settling in a new place can be a really tiring experience especially if one does not have any family or friends around.This has been our 3rd relocation in the last 3.5 years and hopefully the last. We moved to Australia in November end and it has been one wonderful experience.Earlier I had moved from India to USA (where my husband was already staying) and later we moved from USA to Singapore.In both the earlier moves I had family who was already there which made the move easy.But Australia was a whole new territory.Also there was a lot of apprehension about the lifestyle and people after listening to what family and friends had to say, but still we were very much looking forward to our move to Australia and we always tried to keep a positive approach. Well we were right and our move to Australia has been one smooth shift.The people out here are just so helpful one of my husband's colleague offered us her spare car to use in our initial days  before we bought our own car.Then we had another colleague offering us a place to stay in-case we did not manage to get a rental accommodation.I think all these wonderful gestures by my husbands colleagues really helped us in our entire settling down process.
Now is has been almost 4 months in Australia and we are loving every bit of they stay.We moved to Geelong a small town around 70km southwest of Melbourne.It is a town by the bay with nice and vibrant waterfront.There are loads of restaurant along the waterfront where one can enjoy some drinks and a nice meal with friends and family.We have all the necessary things in a 7km radius and plus all big retail shops like Myers, BigW, Target to name a few.There is also a Westfield mall in the city center which has a nice food court and lots of other shops.In short it is a quiet little place just an hour's drive from the hustle and bustle of Melbourne but still has lots to do.