Tazzie!

First off, Liz arrived this morning, about 24 hours later than originally planned, but better late than never!

We decided to give her a good intro to Melbourne by walking along the river to the CBD. Today is Melbourne’s 178 birthday and I found a flyer that highlighted some special offers that were available today in celebration of Melbourne Day, one of which was a coupon for Buy One Get One Free entry to the Eureka Skydeck. I’ve taken some other visitors to the 88th floor of the Eureka building for a 360 degree view of the city and a sunny day and a coupon made this the perfect destination. Our walk along the river gave Liz a chance to get acquainted with this city and then looking down on it from the 88th floor, I was able to point out some landmarks. However, Corey and Mike were with us and you may remember that neither of them do well with heights! They once again rose above their fears and were glad to get this perspective of the city.

From the Skydeck we walked to the hub of the CBD and had lunch at a restaurant that featured beers from some small craft breweries. The lunch menu featured kangaroo sliders so we ordered that as an entree (appetizer) and enjoyed that Aussie treat! We needed to keep our eye on the clock as we had to leave for the airport at 3:30 PM, so we boarded the #8 tram to take us back to the apartment.

Jim got home from work around 3 and we squeezed all of our luggage and 5 bodies into the car for a tight ride to the airport. The traffic was much heavier than we thought it would be, but we made it with a bit of spare time. As you might imagine, Liz was thrilled to be getting back on an airplane! The Melbourne airport has some wine tasting tables set up in the gate areas, but they have always been closed when we were there~until tonight! Liz and I each sampled a nice white wine and then headed for our gate.

It takes just over an hour to fly from Melbourne to Hobart, Tasmania. We collected our luggage, picked up the rental car, and were at our hotel by the waterfront around 8:30 PM. Corey and Mike sat next to a guy on the plane who was from Hobart and he gave a suggestion of a restaurant where we could get a good fish and chips dinner and watch the footy game. The restaurant was around the corner from the hotel and we had a good meal.

A quick walk around the harbor area after dinner finished the evening for some of us. When we pulled up to our hotel, we noticed a jumping restaurant/ bar right across the street. The boys are there now and we can hear the live music here in our room! Great!

We have a full day planned for tomorrow, but you may have to wait to read about it because we are going to very small towns or remote areas for the next 4 nights and probably won’t have Internet access. So don’t worry about us if it is a while until a new blog entry appears.

Cheers!