I arrived in Springhurst around 9, to be met on the platform by my cousin. With a half hour drive bringing us into Corowa, we had been out of the car only moments before having a nice chat over a bottle of Shiraz. It’s been a fair few months since a drank wine and was expecting to be greeted by a bastard headache the next morning but I had a great nights sleep and no hang over. Bonus!

We headed out to a vineyard around 12, stopping enroute to pick up some lunch. A little bakery in the next town over tempted us with more than a dozen varieties of pie and an awesome selection of cakes. Having selected our fodder it was off to Pfeifer’s winery for a spot of tasting. The owner a friend of my cousin’s wife and was so lovely, supplying us with some glasses from which to sup. We headed down to a bridge behind Pfeifer’s where we planted ourselves on one of the picnic tables to consume our chosen wine and pies. I opted for a veal pie, which turned out to be not only the best pie I have ever eaten but one of the tastiest foods I have ever had the pleasure of sampling. We ate the pies while looking down over the river, a stretch just off of the Murray, where a few loose crumbs brought a school of a dozen or so carp to the surface to compete for their lunch. My cousin let a couple of pieces of meat fall and they went mad for it. We fed the vermin for a little and then spotted a platypus before it quickly vanished underwater. A few glasses of wine later and drenched in sun we headed back to chill out a little before our night ahead.

Having a beer and chilling in the garden we saw a Kestrel land on the fence at the bottom of the garden. It could only have been moments later when it made it’s move on a poor unsuspecting sparrow in the garden. The poor thing wouldn’t have known what hit it, it was over so quick.

Around five o’ clock a couple of my cousins friends dropped in to say hi and we met up with them later at a club in town. We went to a dinner sponsored by a local vineyard where they brought glass after glass around for us to try that had been matched to each of the 5 courses, my favourite being a sparkling red, produced the same way as a champagne. We had lots of fun before leaving the dinner and stumbling on a young group of girls singing country and western to an audience that sat in rows, each with a blank expression. My counsin’s wife and I danced in front if them all, making a mockery of the whole event before we left to head over to my cousin’s friends place for yet more drinks, this time the wine would be fortified and it hit me hard and I soon found myself discussing budhism and spouting shit.

This morning I was in lots of self inflicted pain. My stomach has been in knots all day, but a quiet day was had by all. My cousin had come down with flu and was not in a good way. His wife and I headed out to get a dvd with the only requirement being that there needed to be lots of shooting and there was lots of that amongst yet more wooden acting by Keanu Reeves and a pretty lame storyline resulting in a film that was only just passable for release on dvd. The highlight of the day being the roast chicken dinner and the apple pie my cousin’s wife had made, very nice indeed.

On my way back via train now and battery is low and about an hour and twenty to go.

Had some great mushroom resotto in a swanky pub with the folks from work. Was great to meet them all. Then back for a tour of the office. Think I’ll be happy working here, lots to get my teeth into.

From there I headed into the city, picked up a circular polariser and went to the Eureka Skydeck. The views are out of this world and the sunset was awesome. Amazing what you can see from the 88th floor when the windows are floor to ceiling. They were filming some new tv program up there during the evening, god knows what that was.

I stayed up there for a while, it’s so peaceful looking out over the city. I just chilled and drank coffee.

I woke up at ten, raised the blinds to let some sun in then lay for a short while thinking about dragging my ass out if bed before falling back to sleep. I probably did this five or so times before Kate called at around six. I used this as an excuse to get up and I went flat hunting again on easy room mate until seven before heading out fir a bite to eat.

I found this Japanese/Korean restaurant that looked pretty decent called Ume Hans. Turned out the food was stunning, I had an assorted sushi selection and a cup of jasmine tea, which apparently I like one he’ll of a lot. Whole thing came to around $12 and filled me right up.

I did end up burning my tongue on the tea and also had too much wasabi in one go leaving my eyes watering like a school girl who’s had her doll taken away.

C’est las vie!

Caught tram to St Kilda and ended up at south Melbourne beach, end of the line. So walked along beach to St Kilda, took about an hour and quite nice walk, saw a few guys kite surfing. Arrived at Lunar Park in St Kilda then headed straight to Banff for pizza with Kate and some of her friends but couldn’t find it so this lovely girl called Tamara, rather than give directions, walked me to it.

Food was great and Kate and her friends were really welcoming. Had a few drinks with dinner and Kate dropped me back to the hostel.

Chilled out in the bar reading paper when a german drummer sat down and we had a chat and few beers before some guys from Yorkshire joined us and we all got wasted.

Game over…..

I took three trips around the city, two by bus and one by tram. Starting to get my bearings slowly, trying to find places rather than using a map. Maybe I should just pull over and ask someone for directions as my feet hurt quite alot but it’s fun while I have the time to explore.

Bank account sorted and found some free wifi hotspots too as I couldn’t get wifi in my hostel. Also found nandos, subway and burger king - although it’s called hungry jacks here; apparently there was already a burger kings when they came here.

This app is pretty sweet and with my mac book pro playing through my hifi using an Airport Express I think the dreams of a huge Bose system have just been quashed, if only this app could change the Airport Express that was being used so I could channel the audio to a different room, oh and stream any of the library back to the iPod touch would be nice for out in the garden.

Note: you need to be running at least wordpress version 2.5 in order to use it.

Guess what this was written on

1. On the Go menu, choose Go to Folder… and then enter /System/Library/CoreServices
   
2. Copy the DefaultDesktop.jpg image into another folder.  
3. Rename the image you want to set as your background to DefaultDesktop.jpg and then copy this into the previous folder.
4. Logout and see all your hard work put into fruition

Enjoy