I have now left Melbourne and visiting Amy and Ryan in Adelaide. For those not familiar to Australia, Adelaide is the capital city of the state of South Australia. I spent a lovely time in Melbourne seeing Jess and Thil. We talked about their wedding plans and the wedding is at Easter which will soon be upon us. While in Melbourne, I was also very fortunate to meet Peter and his wife Phyllis. Peter has been an Echo Echo blog/video friend and was interested to meet up while I was in Melbourne. Peter picked me up from the bus stop and then took me to his beautiful home and I had lunch with him, Phyllis and a sailing friend of his called Bryon. Byron is planning his own sailing adventure which he plans to do in a couple of years. After lunch, Peter drove me to Jess's house and we hope to meet up again and this time with Neil, when we come back to Melbourne for Jess's wedding in April.

It was the first time I had been to Jess's place, as it was getting built while I have been away. It is a lovely home and very spacious. I got to do some shopping, went to a BBQ, went to dinner and a comedy show with Jess, Thil and Adrian (an old school friend of Jess's) and I also got to meet Thil's family which was nice. One of the best things was, I got to see my dogs Leo and Lily who live with Jess and enjoyed spending time with them. Jess and Thil have a new cat called Lachlan which was very playful and loved coming upstairs and pouncing on me while I was asleep.

Now, I am spending time with Amy and Ryan and I have met their two HUGE dogs called Polar and Sven. It was also nice seeing my old cat Sebe again. We had dinner last night with Iain and Tania (Neil's brother and sister-in-law) and it was so nice seeing them again. They have a beautiful home in the hills of Adelaide and their garden is like visiting a park/botanical garden. They have done wonders to the property since they bought it. They also have a new staffie called Samson.

Neil finished getting Echo Echo ready to leave, said goodbye to his family in NZ and flew to Perth last weekend. He is staying with Emily and Ross, while applying for jobs. We celebrated our wedding anniversary apart this year, which I think was a first. We are talking daily on the phone, but it feels a bit weird to both of us trying to plan and organize things for the future being apart from each other, especially as we have spent the last two years together 24/7. Neil is looking for a temporary house sit until we find a place to rent and I have been searching the internet to make up a list of possible cars to buy and possible houses to rent. Google is so handy, how did we survive without it!

I am looking forward to seeing Neil plus Emily and Ross when I fly to Perth on Christmas Day. The weather predicted for Perth is for a fine sunny day of 30 degrees Celsius, which sounds perfect. The morning however, will be a hot one for me, as Adelaide has a forecast of 40 degrees Celsius and I fly out at lunchtime. Amy and Ryan will definitely have the air conditioner on in the house and even the dogs might get to stay inside on such a hot day. Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and happiness in 2017.