2/13/2002 Melborne, Australia
(Phillip)
I thought I'd enter a journal just out of self-defense. We're still in Melborne having a wonderful time with J&R. From my perspective the best part was all the rowing clubs lining the river! I had great fun pointing out their mistakes....
So far in Melborne we've been doing the 'touristy' thing... We went to the Immigration museum which details the story of Australia
from the perspectives of immigrants. Most people know that it was originally a penal colony for British prisoners. What I didn't know, however, was that before Australia
we dumped most of the convicts in America. I think this explains quite alot :)
We've also visited the Cathedrals (Today is Ash Wednesday so I went to St Patricks, but I missed mass). The Cathedrals are truly immense with great detail. After St. Patricks I caught up with the others at the Gaol (old jail) where the infamous Ned Kelly was executed. Reminded me of a smaller Alcatraz except the tour was much better. It was self-guided but did a great job at bringing the stories of the prisoners home to you.
So, tomorrow the four of us will drive down the Great Ocean Road between Melborne and Adelaide. It'll take us two days but there's lots to see (parks and beaches) so that'll be lots of fun.
Staying with J&R is great fun. They haven't started working full time yet so they've been hanging out with Kel and I. This is a bit of a life saver since we've been spending 24 hours a day with each other since we started and this helps keep us sane! We've got flights to Brisbane on the East coast for the 18th, then renting a camper van and driving North to Cairns then another flight to Sydney on the 4th. We've met 3 or 4 people now who'll be in Sydney when we arrive so there should be plenty of friendly faces there.
Australia
n TV is definitely worse than British TV (both have 5 channels) so we rented some movies a few days ago. However, I've decided that Kelly and Rob should never be allowed to pick movies again (they picked The Animal, Dogma, and Charlie's Angels)!