We're in Melbourne!

But, first, some pictures from the west side of Australia:

Perth: On Cottesloe Beach there was a large sculpture exhibition going on which included this piece of art with these sails. It was fun to watch with the breezes going on. Oh, and the temperature this day was 104 degrees!

Perth: Jonnene's sister-in-law, Olga, shows her daughter what she remembers of playing a guitar.

Perth: A week ago we had an outdoor "snags on the barby" meal with Christine and her man, Eddie, along the banks of the Swan River. "Snag" is Aussie slang for sausage...and they were delish!

Yeah, we're here. It's Monday night and we're in our room at the Best Western Atlantis on Spencer Street, right near the stop for the SkyBus so we can get a ride to the airport early on Wednesday morning. We spent last night up in Bendigo at the home of a couple of friends of Jonnene's and caught the train back to Melbourne this afternoon. It was probably the first time I've been on a passenger train since I was a little kid when we would ride between Minden, LA and Hope, AR. It was nice but I spent nearly the whole ride sleeping since we were dealing with a 3-hour time lag since leaving Perth.

Speaking of, we left Perth very early Sunday morning. Jonnene's sister and parents took us to the airport...which, BTW, had been and was being renovated big-time since we had been there in 2008. We figured the weight of our check-in bags just right: the limit we were allowed was 23 kilos (50 pounds) and each of our bags were pegged at 22! That means we had added about 27 pounds to our bags from what they weighed when we left the States. We have added quite a few things that we're bringing back with us including chocolate that Jonnene claims we will make last until June. Hope she's right!

Tuesday, we'll get an early morning run in the Central Business District (CBD) of Melbourne and we'll spend the day just walking around. Probably check out the Victoria Market, the gardens...just enjoy the day. We'll try to find a nice place to eat for our last dinner in Australia and then back to our room to finish repacking our bags.