After a night of catching up with friends around Michelle and Stewart’s fire pit, with slightly foggy heads, Rod and I planned a bike ride towards Simpson’s Gap. I say ‘toward’ – whilst we would have made it TO Simpson’s Gap, our pleasant ride would then have turned into a 50K + return. I was VERY aware of the ever so slight downhill vibe I was getting. Where there’s downhill there’s uphill…

This ride is incredible in that, the views are amazing: blue skies and red rocks as far as the eye can see. Loved every minute (even the uphill) and it’s felt good being back on the bike this week. Rod stopped for a nature break on the way back and found a bike stashed behind a tree. Stolen? Cross training? Weird regardless.

We returned the bike and picked up Eli and Hamish for a quick trip to the Eastern Macs to have a look at Emily & Jessie Gap. Jessie Gap has ancient rock artwork and Emily Gap is currently full of water. They are both beautiful sites to visit within 20 minutes of Alice.

Michelle met us back at St Phillips, where the three of us met 20 years ago. It was lovely to walk around the school; fond memories of our time here still fresh in our minds. My handprint in the Topsy lockers still front and centre; Jessica’s on the back wall.

We returned to Suellen’s to clean up and pack up for our departure back to Melbourne. Suellen is an absolute treasure opening up her house to us since Tuesday. Plans for last night revolved around dinner at Hanuman’s, but it is booked out for 3 days! We ate at the Juicy Rump at the Casino outside with the gas heaters on.

The biggest issue of the night however, was a lost ticket for the concert Michelle, Jess and I are going to tomorrow night. I paid for it back in April, the money was taken from my account, but I can’t find the ticket anywhere! After multiple calls to Jess, searching email accounts and documents on my laptop (with no success) Jess secured another ticket. Crisis over. Writing this today it sounds like a non-issue, but I can assure you I was less than calm last night trying to work out WHERE this mystery ticket was!

I am stealing Michelle for the next 5 days. We’ll be in Melbourne this weekend then will have 3 nights at Phillip Island with two other girlfriends from home. I can’t wait to show Michelle around Phillip Island and take her to see the Penguins; she’s going to love it.