Luna Park

So having had our wicked way on Acland Street, we waddled back towards the beach to check out the surf and the fairground at Luna Park. (And by the way, the cakes were typically Australian because this country does an excellent impression of a cake shop but when you bite into these jam-encrusted creations, you are almost always disappointed and end up muttering something about how Mr Kipling could have done better).

The beach at St Kilda is alright but there's no point comparing it to Sydney. For a start, the water isn't the same colour and the sand isn't so golden. And when you add the litter and the bottletops on the shore, well, you get the point. You don't come to live in Melbourne for the beaches and you don't come for the weather. The more I think of it, I can't really see why you do come to live in Melbourne, though loads of people think it's great.

Anyway, the sun was shining so we took Ella onto the fair, another Luna Park with one of those big scary faces like the one on Sydney harbour. And Darren took her onto the ghost train, which I was a bit dubious about, though she doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects (well, not unless you count her coming off the choo-choo train saying "I wanted my mummy", but that's dads for you).

At lunchtime she matched our cake-scoffing by doing the magic disappearing trick with an illuminous pink hot dog (see the ketchup around her mouth for details). I managed to persuade her to leave before she spotted the fairy floss though, it could have been much worse.