Last night in St. Leonards (for now)

Tomorrow morning (6:00 am!!) I leave St. Leonards and go back to Melbourne for the day, and then get on the train to Sydney. I'm only going to be in Sydney for a few hours -- my real destination is Townsville, way far north, which I've heard described as "the Tennessee of Australia." I can't wait!! I'm going to amusic festival up there this weekend and visiting my friend Jenny, who I know from SLO. It's supposed to be hot and humid up there and I'm sooo excited! It's been very cold (and at times, raining) in St. Leonards, but I've had a wonderful time.

I've been staying with my cousin, Richard, and his wife, Diane, and they are such lovely people. They've been so kind and generous, cooking the most amazing meals for dinner (so much fish, pasta, and always wine. yum), and taking me out to do fun things in their beautiful little beachy, rural town.

me, Richard, Diane and James

Richard is a farrier and an avid fisherman and today he brought me along to watch him shoe horses at three different farms all over town. He was putting new shoes on race horses at one farm, and the other two farms he was taking care of the hooves on three small ponies.

It was really interesting to watch him work and I was stoked because I got to pet the adorable ponies! Yesterday Richard took me fishing in Port Phillip Bay, right near their house. It was cold and as soon as we got the boat in the water, it started raining, but we were dressed for cold weather so it was allright.

He drove us out about 10 kilometers (I think) where the water was about 20 meters deep, and we were checking his GPS to find the right spot and another machine (some kind of sonar thing) to see if there were many fish nearby. It didn't look like there were many fish so he drove us back closer to the shore and we started fishing -- the fish (snapper) were biting right away! As soon as he got his fishing rod in the water, he got a bite, and then I got a bite! It was awesome! We were just reeling in fish (he quickly taught me how) one after the other. Since I don't have a fishing license, we were only allowed to take 10 fish, but we caught close to 20 -- we kept "upgrading" by throwing back smaller fish when we caught a bigger one. I think he said most were around 1 kilo (?) and some were close to 2 kilos. We ate some of the snapper we caught yesterday for dinner tonight and it was delicious!!

                                   *not our snapper

*our snapper :)

In addition to fishing and petting ponies, I've gotten to play with some really cute dogs, and the other day I got to feed a 2 week-old baby lamb! Diane took me over to her friend Carol's house where baby Timothy (the lamb) lives, because she adopted him after his mother rejected him. So sad! But not really because Carol is super nice and loves adopting animals in need. She let me give him a bottle of warm milk and I held him on my lap and it was sooooo cute!

She also has an adorable little dog named Tyson who I loved!

Since it's been cold and rainy most of the weekend, I haven't been able to hang out at the beach like I was expecting, but it's okay because I'm going to be in the hot weather in a couple days, and I've taken advantage of the cold weather by raiding Diane's book collection -- I read an awesome Ian McEwan book (On Chesil Beach) and I'm halfway through another one (Enduring Love). I hope I finish it tonight, otherwise I'll be left in suspense because the alst thing I want to do is carry another book with me, especially one I can't give away after I finish it. (*if anyone's looking for a great book to read, both of these are fantastic!) I know Sarah and my parents will be very excited about this next bit of news ... in 15 minutes, Criminal Minds is going to be on!! We saw a commercial for it the other day and Diane is so sweet, she remembered and tonight she said to me, "Don't forget -- Criminal Minds is on at 8:30." Yay!

So tomorrow morning I'm waking up at 5:30 and Richard is driving me into Melbourne on his way to work on a farm north of there. I'll have about 10-11 hours to kill in Melbourne and then my train departs for Sydney. I'll arrive Wednesday, have a few hours in Sydney, and then I'm taking a train to Brisbane. I'll arrive in Brisbane on Thursday, spend a few hours there, and then I'm taking a train to Townsville. (Don't worry, in a couple weeks I'll be taking the train back down to Brisbane to actually see the city, and soon after that, I'll be spending some time in Sydney.)

It's going to be a loooong trip up north but I'm looking forward to watching the scenery pass by, sleeping, reading, and listening to music -- and if I can afford it, drinking some wine on the train. :) Unless I can quickly find an internet cafe or hostel (or an Apple store haha) in one of the cities I stop in, I probably won't be updating my blog until the weekend so I hope everyone has a great week and I'll talk to you when I can.

<3