What a Load of Bloggers

We arrived in Melbourne on Friday 10th January and having met the family, my next special treat was to see Orianthi. I have been listening to her music for quite a while and lo and behold she was performing at the Corner House in Richmond on 12 Jan. She is an Aussie but gigs mostly in the USA where she lives for most of the time. I have included a couple of photos from the gig. Look her up on YouTube playing with Billy Gibbons and some of her own compositions. If you like electric blues and rock you will surely like her.

Australian Open Tennis

We got the bug last year and so went again for a couple of visits. We got a ground pass for the round 2 day. A ground pass is good value as you can visit all but the two big courts in the early rounds, i.e. not Rod Laver or Margaret Court. Amongst others, we saw Radacanu beat Anisimova in a mistake ridden 2nd Round match.

I hope that I'm wrong but I cannot see her winning another major - she needs much more power and speed around the court. For our second visit we sat in the Margaret Court Arena for 4th round matches - men's doubles, women's singles then men's singles. In the men's doubles we saw Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori win their match. They went onto become runners-up in the final.

For the last week of the school summer holidays we rented a lovely house in McCrae on the Mornington Peninsula. We were on a hillside with great views. The neighbours included kookaburras.

Time to relax.

We drove up to Arthur's Seat and had two great cable car rides with views of the bay.

A bonus at Arthur's Seat was a wildlife talk. Sean met an albino Darwin Carpet Python and a young freshwater croc. Sean is an Aussie but note the England shirt!

Trish met a wombat. Three years old and already 18kg.

Sunday lunch at The Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda

Roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding Down Under

Sean and Rory had fish and chips

Sunday 2 February - evening

There is a spectacular electrical storm over Port Philip Bay. We go down to the beach to watch. The storm has been almost stationary for over two hours and shows no sign of abating as we depart.

The weather scientists estimated that there had been around half a million lightning strikes during the storm.

John Piccoli - The Spanner Man

9 February 2025. We got the train from Southern Cross and stayed in Kangaroo Flat for the weekend with our good friends Carly and Brenda. Next day, a drive northwards for nearly two hours brought us to the former home of the remarkable John Piccoli at Barraport, about 15k north of the small town Boort.

John was born in 1941 and lived on the family farm. At the age of eight he contracted polio and was hospitalised and without schooling for three years. By the time he was twenty he was wheelchair bound but was still managing the family farm. Later in his life when the farm became too much for him he began creating sculptures from spanners. He had no help making his creations and his designs came from his imagination - rather than from drawings or photographs.

The sculptures are absolutely superb.

Below: sheep shearer.

Mermaid

Below: John's workshop. He travelled around sales and farms in The Mallee area buying spanners and bought about 124 000 in total. Standard spanners cost him $2 apiece but the rare ones designed for specific items of farm machinery often cost significantly more.

There are around 3,400 spanners are in this horse and cart.

Below: Fabergé Egg

Below: Rodeo rider. The horse's tail is embedded in concrete and holds the sculpture in place.

The place would not be authentic without a kangaroo!

Lunch at the Bridgewater Bakery in Bridgewater on Loddon.

The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, near Bendigo, is 50 metres square at its base and nearly 50 metres high. This makes it the largest stupa in the Western World. The Great Stupa is home to many holy objects. Foremost amongst these is the magnificent Jade Buddha for Universal Peace. It is the largest Buddha carved from a huge piece of gem quality jade that was found in Canada. The Jade Buddha toured the world for 9 years and over 10 million people have seen it. He has now come to his final home inside The Great Stupa just outside Bendigo.

The Four Harmonious Friends. They represent the Buddhist teaching of working together.

Bird, rabbit, monkey, elephant.

Having already seen some of Yayoi Kusama's wonderful works of art in her home town of Matsumoto in Japan, it was our great pleasure to visit Melnourne's NGV to see a major exhibition of her work. A few highlights below:

Below: The young Yayoi in 1960s New York.

She is now 95 and still working:

Wednesday 12 February: We flew to New South Wales for a week, landing at Williamtown Airport which is just north of Newcastle, picked up a hire car and drove for about 30k to the attractive town Nelson Harbour.

On the Tomaree Peninsula

Shoal Bay

We took the ferry from Nelson Bay to Teagardens and saw a few dolphins on the way there and back. The ferry was originally commissioned to supply military bases on the coast during WWII.

A view of Zenith Beach from the Tomaree Lookout. It was hard work swimming in the surf but worth it to be on such a beautiful beach.

We drove inland to see a bit of NSW small town country life and ended up in Dungog on a very quiet Sunday afternoon.

Three views from our apartment in Nelson Bay.

At Corlette

One Mile Beach

We arrived back in Melbourne early evening on 20 February and the next morning set off for a four day trip with the family to Porepunkah in the beautiful Australian Alps. Skiing in winter but lots of opportunity for hiking and swimming in the summer.

Here we are in the Buckland River.