2/19/15. Melbourne

We drove to the airport after breakfast and turned in the rental car.  Dave and John were glad to see the end of it as it had bucket seats in the front that were extremely uncomfortable.  We got our tickets and then stood in a hugely long line to get through security.  We only had about five minutes to spare before they started the boarding.  We had a short hour and ten minute flight to the mainland, but then had to wait a half hour to get our bags - such are the joys of air travel!  We were met by our driver hired by the tour company who delivered us to the hotel in the docklands area of the city.  Our tour guide met us about 10 minutes later and we were able to catch up with the rest of the group who flew in this morning.  Louise (our guide) took us on a tram ride into the city (trams are free to ride here for everyone) and then for a walk around and through some hidden parts of the city.  Melbourne is large - about 4.2 million people.  We walked past nice shops and lots of small eateries and then across the river.  The architecture is amazing - late 1800's buildings cheek to jowl with very modern (and equally interesting) ones.  We came back to the hotel and had just enough time to throw in a load of laundry before going to our welcome meeting.  After the meeting, we had twenty minutes to get the clothes out of then dryer and back to the room.  Unfortunately, they weren't completely dry so our room looks like a Chinese laundry - clothes drying on the backs of chairs, on hangers in the closet, and on a line that Dave rigged up from the closet to the towel bar in the bathroom!  We met up again and all walked to dinner at a nice restaurant across the street.  Dave had a steak with fruit for dessert and I had wild mushroom risotto with sticky fig pudding after.  We will go to bed soon as it was a fairly long day.  Tomorrow we will have a city tour by coach and then a walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens.  I will try to put pictures on tonight, but the Internet time here is limited so I may not have enough time to get them on.