Melbourne Zoo and the Sea Sheperd

 Emma had her pen and notebook like she always does.  She was writing down all the animals she saw and drawing  pictures of them.

 cooper loved looking through the windows.  I think they were looking at the monkey's here.

 He spent a good amount of time on Jordan's shoulders though.  Hard to keep up as he doesn't walk very fast.

 The elephants with the baby's the girls loved this.

 

 Walking around with the Emu's.  Jordan loved this.

 Cooper and the girls chasing the birds.

 The Sea Sheperd was parked out in our bay for a while.  We could see it from our living room.  Jordan took the girls over for a tour one Sunday arvo. (Australian for afternoon)

 Dottie in the captain seat.

The Grampians National Park

 This week we headed up to the Grampian National park.  Tuesday was a Melbourne Holiday and Emma had it off school and no work for Jordan.  They celebrate their Melbourne Cup day which is horse racing.    So we took off early on Monday and stayed the night and spent Tuesday exploring. 

 We were hoping to see some more wild life and that we did.  Kangaroos everywhere.  Jordan's goal was to see a wild Emu.  At first we didn't think it was going to happen. Then finally we came down a mountain side into a clearing and there they were.  With lots of kangaroos around them.  I would guess we saw hundreds of Kangaroos and wallabies.  And about a dozen wild emus.

 The emu's.

 It was a very pretty drive through the park.  A lot of it reminded me of  Zion's national park.  It seems that fires had been through many parts of the park and now starting to grow back.  These plants were very interesting.  Not even sure how to describe them. 

 We have found that caravan parks are the place to stay.  At least for our family. They are very budget friendly and are usually self contained which means they have a kitchen unit.

 These rocks were near where we stayed.  Jordan wasn't too impressed but I thought they were pretty cool.  Large granite boulders.  They are called "sister's rocks" named after the Levi sisters who camped here in the gold days.
 Can you believe how big this thing is.  We stopped here to take a picture and found out they also had a little zoo with koalas so we went. 

 Cooper hasn't been to interested into animals until he saw this goat!  Not sure what it was about the goat but he loved it and wanted to touch it.  (Which I did not let him do)  He was all giggles around this thing.

 More pictures of the Koalas. 

 We drove back though the park again the second day.  This time we went a different way (Jordan's favorite) the dirt roads.  A look up at the mountains lots of little caves.

 Some interesting birds.. kind of like a parrot but all white.

 The second day we also went to the Brambuk Aboriginal cultural centre.  We don't have many pictures as they did not allow cameras.  But I snuck a few while we were doing our aboriginal paintings.  The girls each painted a rock and then we all worked on a family boomerang.  They taught us what a few of the symbols meant and then we were to paint our own stories.  We had a lot of fun with this.  Here we also had our own personal didgeridoo lesson.  They are pretty laid back people and I think we got our own personal lesson because I kept pestering them about it.  HA.. They were suppose to have a demonstration at 1pm and we waited and waited.  Nothing.  We had already asked earlier in the day and he was like ya.. I think it's at 1.  Anyways..  We got our demonstration.  And it was very cool.  Emma even had a go at it and did pretty well.

 Around the grounds of the cultural centre  were lots of kangaroos as well.  Jordan got some pretty cool shots I think.  And some good video which we have a hard time getting on the blog.  We actually saw a baby joey trying to get into his mama's pouch and he was too big he kept falling out.  Pretty funny.

 Here is some more of the park.  I guess at one point you could actually walk out to the little cliff but it is now walled off.

 Some cool rock formations.

 Emma loves posing for the camera

On our way home.  These are the Grampians in the background.  It is said that they look similar to waves of the ocean.  Not a great picture showing that.  But they kind of did.

Happy Halloween

 The little Monster!

 The "Evil" fairy and Witch!

 Cooper not wanting to pose for this picture!  We had a great time this year Trick or Treating.  Wasn't sure how it was going to happen since most Australians do not celebrate Halloween.  A guy from Jordan's work told him that his neighborhood gets a few trick or treaters out, so we thought we would head over there and try it out.  Yes there were only a few.  I say we maybe saw 10 kids at most out.  One family I talked to had a son that was probably about 7 and it was his first year trying it out.  Most people were not prepared for the kids to come knocking on their door.  Some people were very excited to see the kids all dressed up.  The kids got a little bit of everything it seemed like.  Biscuits (cookies), can of coke, fruit, half opened bag of lemon and eucalyptus lollies and lots of other lollies (candy).  The lady that handed out the can of coke actually had candy but she thought the girls were so cute they deserved a little extra something special. 
Back at home you know you go to the houses with the lights on.. well here..   it's doesn't get dark until about 8pm these days and no one really had decorations ( a pumpkin cost around $20 for ONE.  They have to import them in)  Some houses did.. so anyways.. we just went to all the houses..  maybe 1 in 8 answered the door.  We had fun. 
We overheard a conversation between two boys while we were out.  They were yelling across the street to each other maybe an older brother to his little brother.  "Hey mate, How many lollies did ya get" " I got heaps of lollies, see" (holds up his pillow case full) "That's great"

Here is one of the girls bags!  Here Cadbury is like Hershey back home. 

Brighton Bath Houses

*** update***  I guess I failed to mention what the bath houses are used for.  They are mainly used for storage of gear and a place to change.***
We are slowly crossing things off our to do list and this was one of them.  The Brighton Beach Bath Houses.

 I guess there are lots of wealthy people that live in this area and they can afford their own bath house on the beach.  I hear they are quite expensive. 

They are all painted differently.  Here is the Australian Flag.  Emma liked this one.

 Dottie liked these two...  not quite sure why she is posing like that.. she is such a ham.

Pretending they are swimming with the dolphin.

 The Kangaroo one...  trying to fight it.

 Who do you think will win this fight?!

They even take wedding pictures here... how cool is that!

Puffing Billy Train

 A couple weeks ago we took a ride on the Puffy Billy Train up in the Dandenong Mountain ranges.  It's an old steam train that they have brought back to life. We opted not to ride it the whole way and just did a half trip, just didn't know how long the kids would last on a train.  In the end we ended up being on it about 1.5 hours total and that was plenty of time.
 Here we are about to cross a bridge over a road.

 It seemed to be the trend on the Puffing Billy to sit on the sides of the train.  So here is Emma sitting on the side.  It was mostly kids doing this but some adults played along too.

 Some of the beautiful country side.  Lots of rolling hills.

 We went half way and stopped and got off to wait for the next train heading back to where we just came from.  Here they had a small park with walking trails and a lake, and a small cafe where we had lunch.

 

 Love this picture!

 Coming back across that same bridge from the beginning.  It was kind of scary.

 Everybody sitting on the edge. 

Cute little engineer and passengers...  that other kid just joined in.. not sure who he is!