When Nathan and I found out I was going to a training conference in Melbourne, we immediately planned to take full advantage of my free airfare and hotel accommodations. We decided to fly out after work on Friday night to give us maximum weekend. But of course we couldn't get on the same flights. Optimistically, we chose my flight leaving at 6:00 am. With increased security that meant being at the airport at 4:00 am. Nathan was supposed to get off work at midnight, but at 2:00 am I called the hospital and said I was coming to get him ready or not. After picking up Nathan, we rechecked our packing and decided to wait up for the cab scheduled to arrive at 3:30am. We shuttled off to the airport, took our seperate flights (Nathan's 1 hour later than mine) and arrived in Melbourne.

Because we would spend the whole week in the heart of the city, we decided to rent a car and go to the Yarra Valley, a wine region 1 hour from Melbourne. During our drive we stopped at a vineyard for lunch (I had tempura gator in honey eucalyptus sauce. Gator tastes good--but anything does when its deep fried). After lunch, we headed into Healesville for a leg stretching hike through a local rainforest. Yep. I said rainforest, in Australia. Its like Jurassic Park. Giant ferns, stringybark hanging down like vines, weird animal sounds, bugs.

That's when we heard something completely different. It was R2D2 after a severe electric shock. The bushes rattled, more strange noises. Then we saw the Lyrebird.
I am including a video for you to look at. This has got to be the strangest thing we have seen so far. Turn the sound up on your computer, you need the full effect.


If you want more of this weird bird, search www.youtube.com for lyrebird, the David attenborough video is awesome.

After seeing this amazing display, Nathan and I returned to our Bed and Breakfast for 12 hours sleep. We stayed among the vineyards, with a view of the mountains that reminded me of Nathan's grandpa's ranch in No. California. After more hikes through the rainforests and mountains, and trips for wine tasting, and cheese tasting (my favorite), we drove back to the airport to drop off the car, then went into the city.

Nathan's given you a picture of all that we did in Melbourne: Chinatown, Barber of Seville, 3 comedy shows, Miss Saigon, Immigration Museum, Melbourne museum, and food, food, food. We ate at Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen (Jamie's menu, with a youth program that teaches disadvantaged youths to be top chefs.) and loads of other great places.

The city feels like Seattle, more overcast and rainy than Perth, with lots of little shops, alley ways, bars, restaurants, arts areas. The Central Business District is about 1 mile by a half mile, with a collection of ethnic and funky suburbs surrounding the CBD. Even though you can walk across the CBD in 30 minutes, Melbourne has a great public transport which combines several free “trams” (cable cars), commuter trams (pay for a ride), buses, subway, and trains.

There is a river which runs through the center of Melbourne. With the Royal Botanical Garden south of the river, and a sculpture garden running along the north of the river. An amusement park sits on one side of the river with a shows, ferris wheels, and other entertainments day or night. Across from the amusement park, sits rows and rows of boathouses, where the rowing crews take their boats on the river, day or night. We saw several crews rowing in after dark with the coxn holding a flashlight.

Melbourne has its famous market (Great Victoria Market) where Nathan bought a didgeridoo (living up to our tourist stereotype. Getting good will require lots of practice. Its like nothing else. Until Nathan’s mastered it, we’ll spare you the demonstration.) Nathan wandered St. Kilda’s (The uptown of Melbourne) while I sat through lecture after lecture. The last day, we had pizza on Lygon street, famous as a “Littly Italy”. We decided Papa Gino’s was authentic, because the couple next to us ordered in Italian, and our server chatted to them in Italian for a long time. Authentic or not, the pizza was excellent.

Finally back in Perth, and settling in to life as normal again. Well, normal for now, our rental agency has asked if we would consider terminating our rental contract early—because the owners are moving back to Perth. We have the right to stay til January because of our lease, so we can keep our great location near the beach, and the park, and our great native bush garden. But we can trade up if wewant. We’ll see if we can find anything better. Otherwise, it would take some pretty big incentives to persuade me to go through moving and resettling again.

We have tons more photos, I’ll just add a few more for your viewing enjoyment.