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Happy New Year from Singapore!
I am writing this on our first day here, sheltering from the torrential rain which we're hoping is going to stop before the countdown to midnight tonight.
Before we get into all that though, there is the small matter of Melbourne,
Christmas and that little Ashes urn to attend too!!
So, we left Queensland after more rain and a fairly dismal few days watching england get battered in the Perth test match. Luckily enough, Cairns, our final stop on the three week campervan road trip, was a) very nice and b) one of the only places in Queensland not to be seriously flooded so we had yet more good luck and were able to distract ourselves from the cricket disaster until Melbourne.
So Melbourne: after handing back our campervan in one piece (massive relief as 2500 quid bond goes back on credit card) we flew 3000km down south. Now bearing in mind the weather over our previously three weeks had been wet but mid 30s hot with a capital H, it was somewhat shocking to arrive in melbourne in our flipflops and find it 12 degrees and raining. I don't think I have ever felt so cold. The novelty of not sweating from 6am to midnight wore off very quickly! Anyway, despite the weather Melbourne was a blast. We shivered on the st Kilda coast, had a great day catching up with Sue and her family in Sunbury, celebrated Xmas eve with Anita, Jessica, Ant and David on southbank and made our very own Christmas day, complete with blow up tree, plug in USB tree and a boil in the bag turkey with all the trimmings on Xmas day itself. Over Christmas we were staying in a lovely apartment hotel called the Cube which felt like the ritz after the campervan. Before arriving there we managed to squeeze in another glorious day of wine tasting in the yarra valley by doing 'rent a bomb' (and it really was) and staying in lovely Healsville, so Christmas was competed with some fizzy Shiraz (amazingly nice!) from riverstone, normal fizz from chandon and cab Sauvignon from oakridge - all superb!
But after all those fun times came the reason we were in Melbourne in the first place: the piece d'resistence (sorry Helene), the boxing day test at Melbourne's awesome MSG arena. Now I'd love to tell you all the gory details about how amazing it was, but I would be depriving John who literally had all his Christmases come at once on day 1, so over to John ...
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