Dateline: Melbourne, Australia

The photo is of the cathedral in Christchurch, taken around 7:00 a.m.  Daylight arrives late in New Zealand.

Yesterday's flight over "the ditch" from New Zealand to Melbourne, AU, took 3 1/2 hours, so the Tasman seems to be more than a ditch. We expected to find Melbourne quite hot, since it's at a higher latitude than the South Island was, but it's actually a tad cool. I guess we'll find Alice Springs, etc. MUCH warmer, though,...like in the 90's.

This morning we took a tour of the city, then at 1:00 it really got interesting: we boarded the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant for a tour of the city (again) while eating an elegant meal. Our waiter was a riot and delivered one-liners which were hilarious to us, because we were hearing them for the first time and because he was serving us champagne followed by wine followed by rum and coke followed by Drambuie. Enough said about that.

But the meal itself: An appetizer of cream, liver, and cognac pate and another of roasted red capsicum dip

Entrees of grilled kangaroos loin and smoked salmon. I opted for the salmon while Ken chose the kangaroo (Please don't tell Camden, Violet, and Griffin). I tasted the kangaroo, though, and it was very tender and tasty

Main courses: Chargrilled breast of chicken (for me)

Prime eye fillet of beef (for Ken)

A selection of Australian cheeses

Phew. We all staggered off the tram and walked back to the hotel.

This morning, though, we visited an opal store. I'm sporting a new opal ring on my finger, in fact.

Tomorrow we're taking a day-long tour outside the city.

Melbourne's original city planner decided the streets should be 99 feet wide. The Powers that Be disagreed and ordered the planner to decrease the width. He simply turned the plans upside down, making the width read "66" feet, the Powers approved the plans...and the streets are 99 feet wide. It's a well-planned city. We visited a botanical garden where we saw amazing tuberous begonias and gloxinias. Lynn and Jim: Please tell Erik we saw a selection of Cavellini papers in the botanical garden gift shop. I asked to take a photo of them, but the clerk said photos weren't allowed.