Exploring Melbourne

We have continued to enjoy our time in Melbourne with our wonderful hosts, the Kertons. We began our day Tues., with breakfast at Victoria Market, a Melbourne institution. An open air market with rows and rows and rows of fresh meats, fruits, vegetables, clothing and trinkets - something for everyone! Unfortunately, we were not able to go to Matt's place b/c of weather but are hopeful that we will get there on Thursday before we leave. Instead we went to the Melbourne zoo and even though it was cold and drizzly, lots of wonderful animals to enjoy. The butterfly house was a nice warm stop at the end of our trip there.

After an afternoon nap to continue to help combat what I hope is the last of our jet lag, we were treated to dinner at the Kerton's. Wow, can they cook - several homemade breads to choose from, gnocchi from the market, fresh salad! YUM! Jan and Doug live in a wonderful Victorian home just outside of Melbourne. Doug is a gifted carpenter and has renovated/reconstructed most all of the home himself. Jan pulled out the giant box of Legos and Travis and Clayton felt right at home. Noah and James found computer games in common so we saw little of the two of them for the evening! :) Made for a wonderfully relaxing evening for all of us.

Although Noah had grand ideas of going to see the movie "300" at the IMAX theater, after such a delicious meal, we were all ready to come home and try and catch up on our sleep. Good news is that both little boys only woke once in the night and then were able to go right back to sleep. Progress!

Today, Wed. we spent the morning at Federation Square, home of several galleries. We enjoyed an exhibit of aboriginal art, that is until Travis laid his hand on one of the paintings pointing out his favorite. Needless to say the guard frowned upon such activity and we made a hasty departure. Next door there is an animation museum and the everyone enjoyed watching various clips of animated cinema. These seemed to take up our morning and we headed home, stopping at the "Lord of the Fries" for a quick bite on the street. We will enjoy some famous "Jones family quiet time" this afternoon and then head out for some more exploring before meeting the Kerton's for dinner out somewhere.

We

In the Southern Hemisphere!

Well, we are safely ensconced in Melbourne after an adventure just getting here - several lessons learned along the way:
- Always call the airline to check on flights before going to the airport. We arrived at Dulles at 5am on Fri. 6/15 only to discover our flight to LA had been cancelled. I must say the ticket agents bent over backwards to make arrangements for us to make the connection to Melbourne in LA - we ended up changing airlines and flying standby, but did get to LA, 6 hours later than anticipated, but enough time to enjoy our "day room", take a nap and make the flight to Melbourne.
- Weighing and measuring bags pays off - we easily met both requirements and we saw more than on unhappy traveler who had to re-pack or unpack in order to be allowed on the planes.

Our flights themselves were uneventful for the most part - boys were real troopers, there was plenty of entertainment and b/c they were overnight flights - just put the boys in pj's and they manged to sleep for at least half of the flight to Australia.

We were met at the airport by Grandma Jones, Jan, Doug and James Kerton who have been wonderful hosts! We are staying in a 3 bdrm apt. right in downtown Melbourne, easy to walk just about anywhere we want to go. Including JP taking little boys out for a middle of the might jaunt when they woke up and couldn't go back to sleep the first night here.

It was Sunday when we landed here, Noah's 16th birthday! A real treat to celebrate that on another continent! Spent that afternoon at the Aquarium and a bit of walking around the city. Early to bed to try and re-orient our sleep cycles, still not there, but hopefully in the next day or so we will have all of that sorted out.

Monday, had great fun going to the Melbourne Museum where they had a wonderful exhibit on The Great Wall of China. Just a really neat place with plenty of exhibits that the children enjoyed. Very interesting Aboriginal History section, plenty of bugs and stuffed animals to look at and even a rain forest section.

It is still very cool - long pants, long sleeves and jackets are definitely the attire of the day. Although chilly, no rain so we are taking brisk walks around the city.

Are off today to experience Victoria Market - an open air market in downtown Melbourne and then to "Matt's Place". A friend of Jan and Doug's who has a private sanctuary of Australian animals - we will get to be up close and personal with them.

I am going to try and post pics later today, but just haven't figured it our quite yet.

Some have asked for our itinerary so here is a brief synopsis -

June 17-June 22 Melbourne
June 22 - June 25 Ayers Rock
June 25 - June 27 Sydney
June 27 Arrive Brisbane and transfer to Hervey Bay
June 28 Hervey Bay to Lady Elliott Island
June 29 - June 30 Lady Elliott Island
July 1 Fraser Island
July 2 Transfer from Fraser Island to Hervey Bay
July 3 Hervey Bay to Brisbane
July 4 Brisbane and catch flight back to US

We are off to carpe diem!

Next Jones' Family Adventure

Well, in four short days the Jones family is off on another adventure! For better or worse, we are leaving the RV behind and winging our way across the world to Australia for 3 weeks!

The preparations have gone mostly smoothly -- have you ever weighed your luggage before packing?? As we usually do, we are working to travel as light as possible and still meet the needs of gadget wizard Dad, the almost 16 y.o., 7 y.o. and 4 y.o., not to mention all the "things" that Mom thinks should go to keep everyone happy and content for long travel times. As book lovers, it has been hard to choose what to take, although John-Paul has worked hard to download both audio books and ebooks to lighten our loads. This will be a new experience - not actually turning the pages when I read.....hhmm, we'll see.

Our first hurdle will be the getting there - we have approximately 30 hours of travel beginning with driving to DC Thursday night so we can be at the airport at 5:00am Friday morning. While we leave on Friday, we cross the International Dateline and actually arrive on Sunday, June 17 - Noah's 16th birthday!! All I know is that I picked up an inexpensive analog watch so that I can adjust the time easily - I'm sure someone will have to tell me what day it is.

Boys are excited and we are marking "things" off our list. Not sure what our internet access will be to keep up the posts to this, but thought we would give it a whirl.