The last two days have been spent with my niece and her partner and their two year old twins Henry and Alice. The children were absolutely delightful and we had a great time. We did those things that children love to do. So on our first afternoon we went for  a picnic in the botanical gardens in Melbourne and we had a pleasant afternoon, after our picnic we walked around the newly planted cactus garden which was a real delight.
The evening was spent playing games, bath time and reading stories before the adults could enjoy their meal.
It was full on again at 7.00 on day two and you forget how much noise two lively two year olds can make, breakfast, a walk to the beach, all of ten minutes away, a morning sleep and an afternoon walk to the park filled the whole day, before bath time, reading stories and bedtime. It was a very different experience for us but a truly enjoyable one.
Today we were up early again, breakfasted and off to the village to buy a birthday present before heading off to the park again. We left as they were heading  off for their morning sleep.
We returned to the botanical gardens which we love to park there and go for a walk.We didn't have enough money for the parking meter and a very nice chap just gave us three dollars to pay for the parking, it was very good of him and was totally unexpected. We walked off into the city to get some cards for various birthdays and then had lunch in a food court, where we had noodles in a  small box, I had chicken and Rosemarie had prawns and its was extremely good.
After lunch we headed back to the car and off to the airport to take our bags to our hotel, we went the wrong way down the motorway and had eventually to turn around having already been through several toll machines, so it could prove to be an expensive mistake. The trusty expedition navigator let us down for the first time this trip.
We found our hotel easily and took our bags to our room, filled the car with petrol and took it back where we complained that it had felt as though the front left wheel was not balanced , it had not been good all the time we had had the car. It was then off to the terminal to book our seats on tomorrow's flight where the nice man on the Quantas desk gave us some seats with plenty of leg room, when we thanked him his reply was that he tried to do one nice thing a day.
We then walked back to our hotel and the master packer began the magical experience of repacking of the cases and getting us organised for a 4 .30 am start tomorrow. We have to have checked in by 6.00.
Our last day on mainland Australia and a really lovely if somewhat busy one.