It has rained all week. The driveway is sodden. Every time I venture out my door I risk loosing a shoe in the sticky mud that sinks up to my ankles, and woe betide me if I wear sandals! But, at last, today was a sunny day. Not a proper aussie scorcher, but still, the sun shone.

I'm not complaining about the rain, Melbourne has been in a drought for the last 7 years or so, and this unseasonal rain is helping boost our struggling dams, which have been hovering at around 30% full for about a year now, which is never a good thing as we head into January-Bushfire season. But today was beautiful. As I was walking home, I took pictures from the hill.





























































I'm not sure how well you can see in these photos, but in the distance there are some hills, and you can kind of see where the trees meet these hills. You wouldn't know by looking at those photos that the city goes out until the base of those hills! Thats what I love about my adopted hometown, its so green, even though its parched. There are trees everywhere. Only a few minutes walk from our house is a park with a creek in it, where its easy to forget you're in the city and imagine you're in the bush. Lots of native animals live there, its common to be walking along the path and to see a couple of Rosellas poking their cheeky heads out of a hollow in a tree.
I love Melbourne ^_^

However, I'm even more excited about the fact that in just over 24 hours, we will be on a plane going to New Zealand!! We fly in to Auckland, arriving there at around 3pm NZ time. The next day, we take a ferry to Coromandel Town, and then on to Matarangi, to join the rest of the clan. Cousins, aunties, uncles and grandparents, oh my! You can tell that I've really missed my extended family, can't you!