A great day was had by all...

G'day. Last Sunday we all went on a steam train trip and what a fabulous day we had. The Willow boys were up early in anticipation of an exciting day and they weren't disappointed. I did tell them that we would have a very early start, but they didn't seem to worry about that and when I went to wake them at 4.30 am, they were already up and rearing to go. After a hasty breakfast, we were in the car at 5.15 making our way to the big smoke (The beautiful city of Melbourne)



We arrived in plenty of time to take some photos before the train left, though to be honest, I did get a few strange looks when I was posing with my three new friends, but who cares. As I said to hubby, those people will probably never see me again anyway. Hubby got into the swing of it and was quite happy to snap away.

This trip was to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Bendigo line and the relaunch of the steam locomotive R711. The city of Bendigo is only about an hour's drive from where we live, but to be on this train, it meant us driving into Melbourne,to Southern Cross station where the  steam train was leaving from,then the loco trip took a couple of hours because it was running on our metro line a lot of the way and it had to stop frequently to let the Metro trains pass, because they of course have a time table to keep. The early start and excitement was a bit much for poor Ratty and Toad, they needed a snooze, but Mole was taking it all in and was trying to jump up and look out the window. At one stage, I had to hold him down or we might have lost him on the track somewhere. Hubby and I, like the big kids that we are, had the window open and were hanging our heads out, inhaling the smell of soot and  getting smoke in our eyes. Mole of course wanted to do the same .Ratty and Toad slumbered on.

We will continue this story again soon.

Hooroo from Ratty, Toad, Mole and Liz...