We have now moved to our last stop in Australia, Melbourne. We are staying with John's cousin, Philippa, and her husband, Max. We have met up with them a few times during their trips to UK. Initially we had to catch up on mundane tasks like washing clothes and also went shopping with Philippa, so first day was quite restful. On Thursday we set off into Melbourne City by train with Philippa who was going to work. We arrived a Flinders Street station (as pictured) and went first to the Visitor's Centre and discussed places to visit with a very informative assistant who gave us several leaflets showing the centre tram route, a wider tourist route and also walking tours. We set off on the City Centre tram and decided to do the whole ring to get our bearings and find out various tourist locations. After a coffee, we decided to focus on one section of the city including Parliament, the Old Treasury Building. In the afternoon we walked to St Patrick's Cathedral, visited Victoria Deaf Centre, Fitzroy Park and Cook's Cottage, which had been moved from the UK.

On Friday we all set off for Phillip Island via the Australian Garden which was amazing. The garden is still undergoing construction, but featured plants from across Australia and was a very interesting place. Moving on to the island we discovered seaside towns called Cowes and Ventnor and found that the island is twinned with the Isle of Wight!! We walked along the boardwalk at The Nobbies looking at seagulls and chicks and on the look-out for seals. Then at dusk we sat by the beach and watched the little penguins come ashore, waddle across the beach and up to their burrows in the dunes. It was lovely to see them in the wild. On Saturday Max took us for a tour in the Dandenong Range where we walked to a waterfall, went to the viewpoint to look at Melbourne (we saw the city centre 33km away) and saw kangaroos in a reserve by one of the Melbourne Water dams. On Sunday we went to Max and Philippa's church in the morning. In the afternoon we visited Maureen's father's cousin, Stan, who had requested that we look him up. We were made very welcome by Stan, his daughter and her husband, Robyn and John. We showed photos of our family and of his relatives in Perth. Stan showed me a copy of my mother's Christmas letter and I was able to talk about the family.