Ya divvent gar there for the swimmen like

Well.. on our first trip to Melbourne the sun shone, the clouds and rain stayed away and we had a fabby time!

Sorry ML, we mostly dawdled along the river and drank and ate ourselves stoopid.

(although we did venture out to the zoo and the aquarium, so we had plenty of opportunity to moan about pushchairs)

The kids claimed it rained all weekend in the Blue Mountains, which apparently explains the lack of car washing and mowing.

Nothing wrong with dawdling along the river.

Glad you enjoyed the weather we arranged especially for you

OMG, where are all the trees...or is it just the picture?

Thats what some parts out West and on the Northern Approach to Melbourne are like....It's like that for most of the Flatland area from Romsey through to Melton and Beyond. Once you get up into the Dividing range it's fine... however the area just the Melbourne side is totally uninspiring.

I've said it before, but that drive from Sydney down the Hume, once you hit Beveridge and come in February through the Flat, brown, dry dead landscape, past all the Factories in Campbellfield, would have to be the just about the worst approach to any City I've seen anywhere..... Including Swindon !!

The approach from Marlborough/Pewsey is actually quite nice...

...so is the road in from the north...from Chipping Wotsit.

...Norton?

I think so. Remember driving from Warwick to Marlborough that route and the whole way it was very scenic - on a nice summer's afternoon anyway.

Hmmm all I remember is the blandest Red Brick houses and plenty of railway sidings...seemed to go on for miles.

There's some lovely countryside around Swindon. I spent my teenage years at school in Wroughton, just to the south and if you go from there up onto the Marlborough Downs, either towards Marlborough itself, or south towards Avebury and Devizes, its pure English downland. We used to walk along the Ridgeway a lot, just lovely countryside and so peaceful

I've spent some good times in Wiltshire...Salisbury, Wilton, Westbury, Chipping...Marlborough...the list is long...and a long time ago, too.

What ye deein in whitley bay it's minging there like!

Whitley Bay was the epitome of exoticism for me as a child!

I still remember the underpass from the beach being flooded every holiday there - you can't get that just anywhere.

South Shields must have felt like you'd travelled to different country then...