Doorstep!

It seems all too easy to overlook what’s under your nose / on your own doorstep, but we’re probably all guilty of it to some degree.

One such place that’s on my doorstep that I often overlook is Melbourne, Australia’s best city by far (Sydney is awesome too but Melbs just edges it).

Today however, I addressed my oversight and travelled to Melbourne to visit ARTVO, an art display that only gets its perspective when you’re in it.

I journeyed by train for just over an hour and then hit the streets for a casual ten minute walk to Melbourne’s Docklands precinct, with a few stops along the way for photos (Melbourne is choc full of the weird and wonderful waiting to be photographed).

The exhibition / gallery is tucked away in the corner of Dockland’s shopping centre and could easily be overlooked in favoury other, more dynamic, shop fronts.

As much as the bling of the other emporiums appealed to my inner jackdaw, I resisted, handed over my entry fee and entered a magical world of perspective.

ARTVO featured eleven zones, each one with it’s own theme. The paintings covered various parts of the walls, ceilings and floors, and each one had a hotspot to stand in in order to create the illusion of being in the art.

As you can see in the shot above the effect is quite convincing and a lot of fun.

Unfortunately ARTVO is an exhibition that is best enjoyed in at least a pair. Going on your own like I did doesn’t yield the best results (as can be seen in the shot above). Thankfully a member of staff was on hand to take some pictures of moi in the art. Lucky her!

ARTVO was a lot of fun and easily worth multiple visits, and a great advert for checking our doorsteps more regularly.

Bye for now good readers!

Blur (but not the pop group)!

Hello readers.

No sooner had I promised myself I’d blog more regularly, four months pass by without a single update. So lazy.

Anyway, on to this entry. In early November 2017 Bec and I headed off to the Yarra Valley to spend a weekend at a winery / spa resort to pamper ourselves and indulge in wine, desserts, cheese platters, room service and chocolate.

The Balgownie Resort wasn’t hard to get to and after a ninety minute drive we were checking in to our luxurious room.

The countryside surrounding us was stunning and thankfully not that busy. Crowds are so annoying. Being plonked in the middle of such amazing flora meant there wasn’t much to do off site, so we stayed on site and had massages, drank alcohol, had copious amounts of cheese platters, spent lots of time in the restauran; and when all of that got too much for us we abused the room service facility.

The one time we did manage to leave our resort we visited a chocolate shop to, once again, do some more eating. What puddings we were.

There were a myriad of other things to do through the resort, like an early morning hot air balloon ride over the Yarra Valley; but who wants to get up at some ungodly hour to burst into flames thousands of feet above the Earth? Not me. I’m quite happy on the ground scoffing cheese platters,

So it would seem the marrying of a spa resort and winery is a grand idea. All we Cassons need to do now is workout how many of these spa / winery hybrids there are in this amazing upside down land? I suppose Bec and I will have to find out.

Bye for now.

Some Summer Sun

G’day Readers.

Another eternity has passed since the last post. Trying to work out how the months can sail past as quickly as they do requires a brain far more capable than mine.

Anywho (not a typo) on to this post. In the middle of the Australian winter we Cassons had the opportunity to spend a week on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. A place that, on average, has around 3,000hrs of sunshine a year. It also has a thriving pineapple industry (apparently it takes two years for them to become ripe). They’re big too. Just look at the one in the photo below.

The place we called home went by the name of Mooloolaba and was about an hour above Brisbane by car, on a good day; but since the roads between the Gold Coast (where we flew into) and Sunshine Coast are crap, journey times are random at best.

However, the frustrations of the drive soon faded away once we soaked up the view from our apartment.

Unfortunately for Bec, some of her time on the Sunshine Coast was taken up with work; but the rest of the Casson family didn’t have such binds, so off we went and explored this great part of Australia.

We visited waterfalls:

Walked amongst dinosaurs:

Enjoyed the watery delights of an aquarium:

Visited coastal towns renowned for their natural chic and beauty:

Mixed with the locals:

And walked in rainforests:

We also made sure we dined out as much as possible to experience the renowned local cuisine:

Suffice to say, it was a tough few days on the Sunshine Coast but we Cassons were more than capable of meeting the challenge head on.

So until that challenge surfaces, be well one and all.