March 9 - Melbourne Cont.

First thing I'm going to ask my friend Peter who lives in Marin with his family but is a native of Melbourne is "Why in the world did you ever leave this place?" It's such a gracious and civilized place. The contrast with SF is stark. While both cities are beautiful, there's a real sense of spirit pride in Melbourne that I've not seen in SF. And the people here are so nice -- tram drivers, ticket sellers, folks at the visitor center, people on the street you ask directions of, restaurant and cafe staff, Internet cafe desk people. They are all so helpful and pleasant. You know the stereotypical feeling we have about the French and how they treat Americans? Well, in Australia and in Melbourne particularly, shift that feeling 180 degrees. Couldn't feel more welcome here and at home. You may or may not be aware that tipping in Australia is not typical -- at restaurants, bars, in taxis, or coffee shops. I've been breaking the rules by tipping regularly and I'm damn happy to do so. In fact, not only do I feel good about tipping the people that have provided service, I feel like giving them a standing ovation!!! So, Peter, why the heck did you leave???

Woke up early this morning and did the laundry thing so now we're prepared for another week on the road. It was a slow start for us and it was cloudy and threatening rain. Hoped on the free bus and rode to the Victoria Parliament building to check it out. Missed the tour so that was a bit disappointing. Caught the free tram and got off at Victoria Market again -- this time it was open. The Market has about 1000 vendors selling all kinds of goods at reasonable prices. Toured the rows, made a couple of purchases and headed off for lunch and to the Royal Botanical Gardens. Lovely grounds and fantastic specimens. They even had a California garden. Took the long walk back to the hotel and crashed for a bit before heading out to do this blog and go have dinner.

Hard to believe we've been away now for a week. Traveling is fun but it is demanding and requires a fair amount of resilience and flexibility and endurance to push through those times when you're tired and just want to be home or in your comfort zone wherever that may be. I think Jay and I hit the wall a bit today with travel fatigue. We've been on a blistering pace and it's all been so stimulating it's like being over-served at a restaurant. So tomorrow the pace will change again. Hopefully it will be a bit slower in the next few days as we head down the Great Ocean Road (GOR) from Melbourne toward Apollo Bay. For those of you interested, you can see what the GOR is all about by going to www.greatoceanroad.com.au . We'll be driving on our own. I'll need to be a quick learner on driving on the right hand side of the road. I think Jay's nervous but I think we'll be just fine.

Not sure what the Internet situation will be in the next few days as we head to more and more remote locations. Free wi-fi doesn't seem to exist even in the big cities so our ability to use Jay's computer is limited. We'll just see what we can find down the road.