He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich.

Trip Start Jan 03, 2010

Trip End Jan 23, 2010

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Where I stayed

InterContinental Melbourne The Rialto

Flag of Australia Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Sunday, January 10, 2010

It feels so good to be back down under! I was last here in January of 2002 and it quickly became one of my favorite places in the world. "No worries, mate!" really sums up what I love about Australia. It's the people more than anything and their laid-back, friendly attitude. This friendliness, combined with a beautiful landscape makes it a place that is difficult to leave. Our first stop down under is Melbourne. With its wide boulevards along the Yarra River, it’s a quieter, charming city (the Saint Paul to Sydney’s Minneapolis). It’s also a sporting capital- with stadiums all over the place for “footy” (Aussie Rules Football), cricket, soccer, rugby, and tennis. Sadly, we will be just missing the Australian Open tennis tourney, which I loved taking in during my last visit.

I got my first taste of VB (Victoria Bitter beer) since 2002 and also discovered another favorite in James Boag’s lager from Tasmania

Yering Station Winery- Yarra Valley

Comments!

. We arrived late on a Saturday and had Sunday off after flying every day since departure. For Sunday, I hired a van and driver to take us around the area. We started at Queen Victoria Market- a flea market that was a huge hit with the group. From there, we continued on to wine country- the Yarra Valley. It’s about an hour+ out of town and located in beautiful country. We stopped at a few vineyards to taste and had a picnic in a park. We made sandwiches with fresh cheese from a dairy we visited and meats from a Coles supermarket, where I discovered an amazing hot red pepper-crusted salami. Fantastic! All the while, there was a kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree, laughing and calling the whole time we ate. They are good-sized birds! Our last stop on the way back to Melbourne was the Coldstream micro-brewery- a place where I could have sat all day. They had a bar where we did a flight and there was a guitar player singing as well. He played “Land Down Under” which was a lot of fun!

The next day was filled with mall tours, but again, I will spare you the details of that. It was interesting walking through the Australian Target stores (no relation) with a Target perspective. They are very good at copying what we do! It was a bit of a hectic trip to the airport, but everything was squared away and we all flew off to Sydney together on by far the shortest flight of the trip.

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