The 3 first weeks of November was really busy for us. We have had 11 people visiting us down here.

The 3 first weeks of November was really busy for us. We have had 11 people visiting us down here. As I wrote in the previous blog, the Follesøs (Jonas family) arrived first. They stayed in Melbourne for one week before we headed out to Mornington Peninsula where we had rented an appartment for a week on the beaches. The day after my family arrived, 7 in total. They just stayed in Melbourne for the night, then we also headed out to Mornington Peninsula to our beach house. The house was very big and very nice. Not excactly ON the beach but still closer than were used to in Melbourne.

The first day we just layed on the beach roasting. I don't have the patient to lay still on the beach so we had a photosession. Got a couple of cool photos of my little sister and my little brother.

The day after we headed out to Phillip Island. My family went to the Koala sanctuary, while the Follesøs went to the beach. They had seen heaps of koalas on Great Ocean Road the past week. Once a year all the koalas are draged down from their threes for the anual health check. And what luck we had that they did that just that day we where there. So we got to see another side both of the koalas and the rangers. We hooked up with the Follesøs after the Koala park. We had lunch/dinner at the beach and enjoyed the sun while we waited for the sunset. 6pm we headded out for the Nobbies. On our way out there we stopped to watch some surfers at the beach. And don't you know, there was a blue tounged lizzard looking up at us. Claus is a big reptile fan so he basically went nuts. Out on the Nobbies it was obviously breeding seasons for the seagulls. The place was packed with them. After sunset we watched the penguin parade. Wich was a bit strange and funny.

Early the next morning we booked a trip with Moonraker Dolpin swims. So we just had to pack everyone in the car to make it out to Sorrento before the departure.  The first stop on the trip was at a seal house thing, that is placed in the middle of the entrace of Port Phillip bay. The next stop was Popes Eye which is a Marine National Park. This area was very different from the previous one where there was a sandy bottom. Here the seawead grew, and lots of birds had settled on the horse shoe formed stone formation. The last goal of the trips was to find some dolphins. They are more mobile than seals, so there was no guarantee that we whould find them. We cruised around for half an hour. Then just 15 min before we had to be back in the harbour we spotted to dolphins cruising along the shore. Some of us got  to jump into the water again, but the dolphins wasn't very interested. When the fery passed us the dolphins decided that theyd rather cruise in the bow waves of the fery. I got to say I was a bit dissappointed that we didn't get to see them in the water. But they are wild animals so there is never a guarantee. The rest of the day we spent on the beach in Sorrento.

Wednesday, the weather was not too good so we headed to Mornington to do some shopping. We had dinner there as well at a very nice italian restaurant.

Thursday the weather was not so good so we ust stayed in most of the day. Erik, Jonas, Espen, Marit and Me headed in to Rosebud to visit the Top fun center where they had mini golf and lots of other games. Erik won 400 tickets on Deal or no deal, so in the end we had over 900 tickets which resulted in a very lame but fun price. A 9 in 1 game table, including bowling, pool and basketball! You can just imagine how that worked!

We packed everybody in the cars an drove up the steap hills to Arthur Seat. We had decided to og to a strawberry farm on the ridge. This was a fun an not very usual thing to do. For 8 dollars you got to pick 500g of strawberries to take with you. We bought packs of chocolate for melting. And you can imagine how much strawberries we ended up having the rest of the week, with each person picking 500grams. On the way back from the farm a couple of wild kangaroos jumped alongside and over the road. Animal lovers as we are we had to stop and watch. First time I've seen wild kangaroos.

Saturday was the departure day for the Follesøs. They packed up all their stuff and came down to our house. The weather was not too good this day either, but Hilde, Torill and Thor still wanted to spend their last day at the beach. The rest of us headed out to Mornington to og sightseeing in the harbour for the big stingrays that lives there. We didn't get to see any of them but it is always exciting just walking on the pier and see if people are catching anything.

Sunday morning we got up before the birds were awake. We (dad, Linn, Espen and me) had made reservations to og out on a boat for some diving. When we arrived we were told the sea was a bit rough so the dive would be a drift dive where you hang off the boat in a rope. Both me and my sister do underwater photography, and my dad does video, so we were more interesting in having a dive where we could get some video.

We decided to og back up on the ridge to visit the actual Arthurs Seat since we didn't stop there last time. We also had planned to visit a car museum but we were to late and came to closed doors.

Even on the way down from Arthurs Seat there was a Echidna crossing the road. They are so funny when they turn around and try to run from you.

Monday we packed up the car and headed for Melbourne. We went for a walk on Glenferri before we headed to the park. It was just too hot to walk in the streets. Later that day we went to the city to visit Max Brenner (the chocolate restaurant) and to feed the possums in Flagstaff Gardens.

Thuesday we just spent in the city doing city stuff. And we also visited Melbourne Aquarium, which was as good as always. They even had a few new installations since last time I was there. And the big smooth stingray was still swimming around in the big tank.

On Wednesday morning we decided to og to Healsville sanctuary. It is a one hour drive up to Healsville but it was well worth it. The weather was good, and we arrived just in time to see the bird show. We spent the day looking at all aussie animals, and we even got to pet a snake and some kangaroos. They even had red kanagroos up there, which I have never seen before. And not to forget the Tazmanian devil. It was alot bigger than i thougt, but he looked like a little punk up to no good.

The last day before my familys departure, we spent in the city looking at different stuff. Me and my little sister went shoe shopping and found her a pair of super cool gallaz. We had dinner at Crown, and watched the flames og off every hour.

Friday was spent packing, and then repacking.  And then packing all the forgotten things. We got to send some stuff with them. That was very good, cause we could never have gotten all that stuff on the plain. The night came and they took off, and the apartment  was very empty after three weeks of visitors.