Marvlous Melbourne

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Hi all,

Left Adelaide last Monday and travelled to Melbourne via "the Great Ocean Road". We all agreed we are getting jaded. We have seen so many 'great ocean roads' between Australia and New Zealand that this section was maybe not the 'greatest ocean road' of them all.

We did stop for a night at Warnnambool and went to a Maritime Museum that was quite cool. It was a seaside village from the 1800's. Lots of people in period costume and then in the evening we went to a laser light show. It was a little like Fantasmic at Disneyland. After dark, we got onto a tractor with a wagon and taken down a long hill to a grandstand and then they reenacted the running aground of the Loch Ard. It was done with water spray in the middle of a man made lake with a projector from behind showing a video with sound. It was pretty good. Stayed nice and close to the Village where the show was so could just walk over and back. It was fun. Stopped in Torquay and toured the surf museum. It had every size and shape of surf board and a very cool movie about surfers going to Japan to surf the waves during a typhoon.

Every little town has to have a claim to fame and in Geelong the highlight of the place was the 'bullards'. See the pix.

Arrived in Melbourne, on Friday afternoon, checked into our hotel and went out to check out the neighbourhood. We are in the thick of a very nice shopping district. Had a busy weekend here. An old friend of Ross and Bonnie's friend Glen lives here . Dave and Gail met in Canada but Gail's family lives in Melbourne. Since Dave is a motorcyle guy he loves it here because he never has to put his bike to bed for the winter. We went over to their place on Saturday, walked around their lovely little trendy area of the city of St Kilda. It is streets full of delis, restaurants, bars and anything else you might want and right on the ocean. A lovely place to live.

Saturday night we took in a footy game. The Aussie Rules Football leaque. It is huge around here and lots of fun. None of us took a camera but we sat behind a lovely family that lived and breathed 'footy' and they took pix for us and the guy, Mark, gave Larry all the information we wanted about the game. It is non stop action. Apparently those players run between 15 and 20 kms per game. The clock never stops. Each team has a couple of runners that run out onto the field during the game delivering water and messages from the coach. Each quarter is supposedly 20 minutes but since the clock doesn't stop they have to add on minutes for any throw ins or I guess TV commercials. The first 20 minute quarter was 28 minutes 15 seconds. The second quarter about 32 minutes. Go figure. I cheered for our new friends Team since we had no preference. It was touch and go the whole game until our Team lost in the last 5 minutes but since we never really knew when the game was going to end, not real sure if it was the last 5 minutes or not.

Today, we met Toni and Fred Coates for brunch. I used to work with Toni at RBC in New Westminster. Toni and Fred moved to Melbourne 7 years ago to be closer to their son, daughter in law and 2 grandchildren. Sounds like they have fit right into the Melbourne life.

Spent the afternoon in downtown Melbourne. It is a very large beautiful city. Tons of old majestic buildings with the new high tech ultra modern high rises right beside them. We did an old tram ride and generally explored the nooks and grannys of Melbourne. It was great to have Dave and Gail lead us through the maze.

Tomorrow we are off to explore more of this area of Australia. Trying to slow ourselves down a bit. Don't really want to be back in Sydney until around May 1. Next weekend is Anzac day so we think we need to be settle somewhere for this long weekend.

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