The Melbourne Getaway ..... 50+F&H

 

I'm behind in my round up of February as I'd planned to wait till after my weekend down in Melbourne which started on the Thursday -2 days prior to the end of Feb.  After managing the 50+ F & H Group (which stood for 50 and over Fit and Healthy - now we are all 60+ lol) of girls for what will be 11 years in August - I organised a full weekend get together based in Melbourne for the Thursday to Sunday!  It took a few months to organise since we have ladies living all over Australia (and a couple that have since moved OS).  Originally I got the group together when I joined Michelle Bridges 12WBT and wondered if I was the only lady over 50 attempting the program??

Meeting each of the arrivals

 I had 107 other ladies join the facebook group I set up ..... slowly over the years the group has grown smaller, however the core group (I made it a closed group) have seen members go through Fires, Floods, Death of Spouses and sadly we have also lost a couple to sickness.  Ladies came from Qld, SA, Tas, Vic and NSW flying and training it in from various towns - We had a ball!!!  I did things I don't usually do when down in Melbourne (although I may just do some of them again lol) - It was a fabulous group of women, many meeting face to face for the first time, but just picking up like we have for the past 10 years!!!  I had some drink holders made to commemorate the event and one of the other girls (Chris) had made each of us a Mug rug   ....... and right at the end on the last day at breakfast they presented me with an amazing gift and a letter from Michelle Bridges - what a group!!!  Enjoy the photos - there a few lol!

Six of us arrived on the Thursday and after making sure we met each lady and dropped off the bags
at the hotel - Thankfully I'd booked us into the Southern Cross Hotel which is very close to the train station and where the sky bus arrives from the airport! Stacey met us to help us initially get orientated with the free tram area and to visit some of the shops ..... including the leggo shop which has the life size tram made from Leggo bricks that you can hop into to!! How cool is it lol

After a time of shopping, lunch at the old post office building and farewell to Stacey it was time to take a walk over the river and work out dinner and decide who was wanting to go to the sky deck at Eureka Tower.....

3 of us ended up going up the tower ..... Helen from SA and Kayleen from Townsville were super keen, so I tagged along with them and I'm really pleased I did!  The building is amazing as is the 360 degree views!  I loved the Bees featured on the outside of it as well ....... you can see them on the white section in this photo, but I needed to take a closer photo!

Then we decided to step out on the outside area which is caged and also has a double door to create a

managed air vacume between the inside and outside of the building.  It was super windy up there and we were laughing trying to get a photo without hair blowing in our faces lol  They have an area up there where you can purchase drinks and a bit of food - we decided to get a coffee and sat to watch the sun going down ..... unfortunately my phone didn't work taking those photos but it was amazing watching the sun disappearing from that height!   As soon as it was down we made the walk back to the hotel, stopping on the bridge over the Yarra to take a couple of photos with the night lights behind us ..... a lovely end to our first day!

Friday morning - another beautiful day for all the interstate visitors saw the other 4 ladies arrive at
various times throughout the day ...... Friday morning saw most of us head to the Southwharf DFO for various goodies and then after lunch we had 8 of us head off to the Botanical Gardens for the bus tour which was a bit of fun! (the other 2 ladies weren't scheduled to arrive until later in the arvo). We opted for a maxi taxi over there and decided to walk back to the City since most wanted to see Federation Square and the Iconic Flinders Street Railway Station.  We made quite the impact with the large group of us all walking along (continually counting heads to make sure nobody got lost lol)

Love this photo ....Helen, Me in the front taking the "selfie" with Bron on my other side in the white cap ; behind her right to left is Chris, Margaret, Sue and Anne in the Blue with Kayleen out the back.

Walking back past the Shrine and meeting up with the last 2 ladies for drinks and dinner.

Myself, Chris, Helen and Margaret in Fed Square

Saturday arrived and after breakfast at Federation square

 we decided to break into smaller groups for some city shopping/exploring .... another great photo on the way to breakfast with (Front to back) Anne, Helen, Chris, Julia and Kayleen checking out the artwork

We discovered a number of us shared a love of  various types of sewing and craftwork ..... we stopped in at Tessuti Fabrics and ended up in there for over an hour lol before heading the Yarn shop (which also had material which I may have purchased  some batiks for a jewel quilt after seeing the top that Helen had brought to show us all ........ I'll share it in another post ....... 

 before we knew it, it was time to meet back at Fed square for a 2hour cruise up and down the Yarra River

We all thoroughly enjoyed having the time to just sit and enjoy the relaxing ride up the river with drinks available if you wanted them and great commentry along the way!  I had no idea there were soooo many very old bridges across the Yarra and it was interesting learning so much about it! We had allowed for the 2 hour cruise ...... we hadn't allowed for it to run over time by over half an hour lol and you should have seen us rushing off that boat and almost running to try getting a tram - ensuring we had all 10 of us together - working out where we were gettting off and racing back to the hotel so we could quickly get changed ready for the big highlight ..... the Shows!

  

4 were going to Rocky Horror Show and the other 6 heading to Grease.  Since they were being shown in theatres not far from each other, Julia (who lives in Melbourne) had been great in organising the shows and dinner booking so we could all eat together, then head to the shows and meet back up afterwards!  The Spagettii Tree was the dinner venue and it was fabulous!

And just like that it was Sunday morning - our last breakfast before we all began heading off to our various buses and trains to head home!  What a fabulous time we had - and the girls surprised me Sunday morning with a little presentation ....... they had been in contact with Michelle Bridges (12WBT and also was on "The Biggest Looser") and she had written a letter to me thanking me for all the support I had shown this group of women over the past 10 + years and after discovering some of the things we had been doing for each other after being part of 12WBT she was inspired by us!  The girls had also been in touch with the rest of the group (all those unable to make the trip down) and I was given a $250 gift card to use for whatever I might decide to use it on!!!!  To say I was blown away was an understatement!  Thankyou to all who took part and a massive thankyou to the 9 ladies who met up with me for a weekend we will never forget!!!