Blogs from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 6

Finally got myself checked through and into the lounge to pass a couple of hours before boarding. The majority of the people in the lounge are Chinese and no doubt heading home to Hong Kong. And no doubt wondering what will greet them as the riots continue. Then there’s the Aussie baby boomer couples. Easy to spot as they eye of the liquor cabinet and their comfortable clothing for a long flight. And then.... there is the eccentric unusual character- and no I’m not talking about myself! A gentleman, somewhere between 60-70 years of age whose shiny leather, pointy toed shoes make a clicking sound on the shiny black tiles. Talking to himself as he decides on his nourishment. A business man I suspect. And of course there’s the female solo traveller typing this account..... I’ll ... read more

OK here we are at Ciloms Airport Lodge just hopping into bed for one more sleep before we take off on our big adventure. Anne and Dick Bartley kindly dropped us out here, we had coffee, bruschetta and wedges, and are tucked in. We‘ll be up at 6 and ready to roll. Look out world !... read more

We set off on our next great adventure - a lap of the globe. Issy is forever coming up with new ways of making our suitcases stand out while they whiz around the airport carousels with everyone else’s very similar looking baggage. She bought some floral covers for one of our trips but they all got torn. Next were purple lanyards, but they had locks on them and we lost the keys. So for this trip she did what any talented, self respecting artist would do, and painted them, with flowers. Very pretty too. I wonder why no one else has thought to do that. Maybe she’ll start a trend. We are surrounded on our overnight flight to Dubai by members of the Haileybury College Pipes and Drums Band, who are off to Scotland to compete. ... read more

Well, we made it! What a flight. We left Sacramento at 3:30 pm and flew to LAX. We then had a 6 hour layover. But by the time we got a bite to eat, walked from terminal 7 to the international terminal and found the Quantas check-in, we had used up 2 hours. We sat around reading and listening to music until it was time to board. Since we were leaving at 11:30 pm we didn't think we would get any food. But they must have been on Aussie time because they served us a full dinner 1:00 am California time. After that I decided it was time to sleep. I managed to get some pretty good sleep for about 6 hours. Stacy read and watched 2 movies. The flight lasted 16 hours. When we landed ... read more

No tour responsibilities today! So it was a leisurely stroll to the Southgate entertainment precinct on the banks of the Yarra river for a very nice and relaxing breakfast at Soho Cafe. From there we had a wander around the CBD, we stumbled on the former Commercial Bank of Australia building where back in the gold rush prospectors brought their golden treasure to be weighed and paid out. The concierge in the building gave us a brief but very informative run down on the checkered history of the building, including how the panels below the tellers were hollow and if there was any trouble the tellers (who were all armed) were instructed to shoot through the panels - not the iron bars where a bullet could ricochet anywhere. There were panels riddled with bullet holes closeted ... read more