Joy Rides

As long as I can remember, I've always enjoyed car rides. Never mind that I used to get car sick as a child. My sisters and I just loved the car rides our dad used to give us in the evening after dinner.

In Melbourne, I just can't have enough of the scenic drives here. Well, we don't have the pleasure of driving around after dinner - kids have to be tucked in early and besides, it got dark really early the past few months. So we try to make do with driving around on weekends.

What I like most here are the different kinds of houses you see as you drive on - some with very nice lawns and driveways. You rarely see the same design although housing developers seem to have started building clusters of identical homes in recent years. Still, most houses look different - with their own charm, style and personality.

And of course, now being spring, you can see many nice flowers starting to bloom. I hate to say this, our Bunga Raya is just no match for the floral beauties here.

And since we are on the subject of drives, I should mention the Great Ocean Road drive. The entire journey from Melbourne to Port Campbell takes about 3 hours but the spectacular views you see along the south west of the Victorian coastline are just breathtakingly stunning - like the stuff you see on travel documentaries. Your eyes can feast on fantastic rock formations (the most famous being the 12 Apostle rock stacks), lush rain forest, scenic little towns and surf beaches along the road.

Now, that was the best drives I'd ever had. Hopefully I'll be able to have another go at it soon. In the meantime, the weekend drives around the suburbs of Melbourne will do.