Year-end 2018

For the past few years, Lani and I talked about visiting Melbourne. We have several friends there and they've told us it's such a wonderful place. So we decided early in the year that we will go down there during the school holidays. We did mention it to our Sydney friends and guess what, they wanted to go too! And so, the plan was formed - new years in Melbourne!

This had been planned for months now, but it was the girls who planned the itinerary. We, the guys, were to be mere drivers. We were to leave Sydney on Thursday the 27th, and return on the 2nd of Jan. The girls decided that we were going the Coastal route on the way to Melbourne and stop for a sleepover somewhere midway. Head to Melbourne the following morning and go separate ways to visit our own relatives. We would then meet up again the follow day to attend worship service, then go to the house that we will be sharing for the next 5 days.


Here's how the trip went:


27th Dec, Thursday

We met up at the Maduli's house at 7am. The plan was to leave by 7:30am, but of course that wasn't going to happen. We had breakfast, I had to go back him because I forgot to bring my radio, and then we had to gas up and fill ice, etc. We we left almost around 9.

We drove on convoy the whole trip and we were communicating on radios the whole time. It was fun. It was also to make sure every one gets there safely. Because Dennis' car had been having problems starting. He needed to spray Ether into his air intake before it would start again.

Our first stop was the scenic Bald Hill lookout at Stanwell Tops, about an hour away. After each family had taking their turn on photos, we moved on to the nearby Sea Cliff Bridge at Cliffton NSW. Again, photos for everyone.

The next stop was the Nan Tien Temple in Wollongong, followed up a lunch break at a nearby Holborn park.
We then headed further south to Hyams Beach for a quick dip before driving on to our rest at Bega Village Motor Inn at Bega. It was a very long day, in fact it was already past 10pm when we reached Bega. Funny enough, Bega is the home of the famous bega cheese, but we didn't get the change to taste it while we're there. During the night, Arien slept in our room and he and Ethan spent the night (till 3 or 4am) playing Switch and chatting.


28th Dec, Friday

We woke up a little early the following day. Starting our day at around 7am with breakfast in the room (we have adobo, spaghetti and sandwich from yesterday). The kids played a little in the playground, and we left the place a little past 9am.


Leaving Bega, we went past the little town of Merimbula, which I thought was very very lovely. I can imagine myself retiring in a place like that. Plenty of trees and water, wide-open views,  scenic and peaceful, yet not isolated from the world. Oh well, journey continues.


First stop of the day was the Green Cape Lighthouse. It was a surreal adventure - not because of the lighthouse, but because of the road getting there. It was 26 kilometers of unpaved, rough, dusty, unforgiving roads. By the time we got to the lighthouse, our dark-coloured cars were already snow white. It was bumpy, it was narrow, there was very limited visibility - and all that was to see an old tower with a light. And the toilet - no one dared to use. But the sights were majestic. Picturesque to say the least. This was probably the point where I fell in love with my iPhone's Portrait photo mode.

After traveling back the 26km rough road heading to the Princess Hi-way, we headed next to the Lakes Entrance for a bit of relaxation. After that, we took the long drive going straight to Melbourne. We split up for the night as we stayed the night with our distant-relatives but close friends, the Andrew and Em Valdez in their Maidstone apartment. As usual with these guys, the dinner was superb!

The other families went to Bro Dennis' brother's house. It was perfect because the son-in-law is a mechanic and he offered to bring the car in for service the following day.

29th Dec, Saturday. 

We woke up really late the following morning. The plan was to go to Ballarat with the Valdez and another family, but we cancelled it. Instead we headed to DFO Essendon for a bit of shopping.

In the afternoon, we attended the worship service at the local of Brimbank where Ethan was ecstatic he got a CWS ribbon for being a " very active singer".

After saying our goodbyes to the Valdez, we headed to the Melbourne chapel to meet up again with the Luzons and Madulis. We also got a change to chat with bro Seth Guitierez who's not the resident minister there. Then on we went to our temporary house at Taylors Hills.

The house we stayed at was of a friend of the Luzon's. It was huge - enormous. It had 4 bedrooms, 3 lounge areas, one of which they converted to a gym, a lovely kitchen and dining space, and a big study in between the rooms. There wasn't any dust in the house! The kids loved it. Erin enjoyed the gym so much - too much that she managed to hurt herself after trying to perform a "skin the cat" move on the rings. She felt flat to the floor face first. She bruised her forehead and her nose. Her hair covered her forehead so it was fine, but nose was very obvoius and red. She I nicknamed her Rudolf, which she loved.

30th Dec, Sunday


  Sunday was spent traveling again. We drove 235kms to the 12 Apostles National Park to look and take photos of rocks. They are gorgeous rocks, mind you, but really that's all that they are - rocks. We walked 1km to the lookout area and posed with the rocks on the right side - about 5-6 of them. Went back to base, ate snacks, then walked another 2kms to get to the beach so we can see more rocks. The kids were of course happy to be in the beach.

On our stroll back from the beach, we decide to leave kids and women on the nearby parking area and us guys will walk the long way back to the cars. Ethan decided he's go with me, which slowed me down significantly. And so we were about 15mins behind the others and they'd already drove away to our next stop. Lani of course was not happy.

Our next stop was a chocolate haven called G.O.R.G.E. Chocolates. about 12kms away from the 12 Apostles. But I took a wrong turn, so we ended up traveling 25kms. But it was the best 25kms I have driven. From Yaruck Rd to Eastern Creek Rd, and then Melrose Rd, it was heaven. The roads where not fully paved, but it was flat enough and there was no one else but us in kilometers with nothing but wide open roads and scenic sights. I was driving 130kph and I was loving every second of it!

We caught up to them at the chocolate cafe for a quick rest.

Going back up to Melbourne, we headed to Windham to meet up with the Bro Rolly and Sis Olive Umali, our good friends from Singapore. They moved to Australia just a year before us and ka Rolly was my partner as Area overseer back when we were still in Singapore. Lovely dinner of course coupled with a bunch of laughter and reminiscing. It's fun to see old friends again.

31st Dec, Monday

It was a relaxed morning for us. Nothing was planned except for a small party between ourselves. We all brought in gifts and we played White Elephant, where everyone gets to open their gifts in turns, but the next person can steal someone else's gift. There weren't any casualties (ie, children crying), but it was fun. We then played a bit more parlour games because heading out to the city.

In the afternoon, we drove to the Melbourne Convention Center for my birthday lunch. We couldn't find any lobster, so we settles on Italian. I didn't particularly enjoy the food, but I liked the atmosphere - fancy!

We then went to DFO for a bit of shopping. The plan was to watch the fireworks somewhere, but we weren't sure where that somewhere was going to be. So we ended up walking to the Marvel Arena to watch the festivities there. Along the way, we passed by a playground where the children burned off them energy as we adults regained ours.

We positioned ourselves on the grass lawn right across the arena at around 8pm. It would be the perfect place to watch the fireworks while lying down or sitting on the grass. But by 10 pm, the crowd had already swollen too much that we're struggling to keep our space. In the end, we all had to stand up, small children on top of our shoulders, to watch the fireworks. Save for the inconsiderate people blocking our view, it was a great experience. Ethan commented that it was the best new
year celebration he had been in (coz we mostly spend ours at home).

The walk back to the car was long. And the 1hr+ drive home was tiring. But it was a great start to the new year.

1st Jan, Tuesday

Tuesday was beach day. We didn't do much in the morning before heading out in the afternoon to the Brighton Beach where parking was very difficult. The kids played in the water with Aris and myself watching over them, while Dennis worries about his car - it was overheating, a different problem this time.

The journey back was difficult. Bro Dennis' car was overheating every 10 minutes. I could see leaks on the radiator. We had to stop every 10 kms to cool down and re-water. Good thing that we were headed to his brother's house for dinner - there was a mechanic in the house.

The dinner at bro's house at Cranbourne was sumptous! BBQ, pasta, longanisa, ohhlala! The kids enjoyed playing Super Smash Bros in their entertainment lounge/cinema room, and then played bingo after, where they all got prices - toys. They finished the night lighting sparkles in the yard.

The bad news for us was that we couldn't drive back to Sydney the following day yet. Dennis car needed a new radiator and it would take the whole day to fix. That meant we had to stay for a day - Yay!

Bro Dennis borrowed a car to use for the day and we headed back to our temporary home. Some of the kids stayed in our car on the drive back and they watched 3Beyond (an animated series). Midway through the 84km journey, bro Dennis realized he didn't have the keys to the house. It was in the other car. So we stopped by a service station to wait for his nephew to drive the keys to us. The kids were happy, they could watch their TV series way past bedtime.

2nd Jan, Wednesday

We had an extra day, so we decided to go cherry picking! We drove 80 kms to Cherry Orchard in  Wandin East to pick and eat cherries. The kids had a blast. They picked and ate cherries like it's their favorite fruit. 

In the afternoon, we went back to the city to enjoy the views that we didn't get to see. We went to Federation Square, went into the ACMI:Museum, albeit only to use the toilet, and we saw the graffiti walls. After a little bit of walking around the Fed square, we decided we'd stop for dinner. We ended up in a Ramen house somewhere not far.

Lani and I went for late groceries to by stuff we needed to clean the house and supplies for our trip back home.

3rd Jan, Thursday

Dennis' car was back in operation so we're going home. We left Taylors Hill just around 9, had breakfast on the road, and drove straight to Sydney via the Hume hiway. We went for a quick power nap at one of the services stations 3 hours into the trip, then continued on the next 4 hours without further stops.

It was a great adventure going on holiday with friends. The kids loved the 5 nights of sleepovers with each other, and the multiple trips to beaches. We're really excited to go on our next journey.