Our trip to Wagga Wagga

Our trip of over and we are back home again. Isn't it wondeful to sleep in your own bed!!! We enjoyed Australia. The country is very draught strickened right now. We did our rain dance and they did get three storms while we were there. One day they got over 10 cms. of rain, so they were glad for that. It was the first rain they have had for at least 6 months. We went to Melbourne on the Greyhound bus and had a wonderful time with a lady that Ardell worked with in Calgary, who has moved to Australia. She met us at the bus station and showed us the whole city of Melbourne. I loved the architecture in their buildings with all the English lattice on their houses. A lot of homes are brick because they have problems with termites in wood houses. We visited the beach and went out for dinner at the Sails on the Beach restaurant, right on the shore with the waves lapping at us and sat and watched the beautiful sunset. Annette and Brian refused to go out for dinner for our anniversay, so we went to Melbourne and Kathleen came out for dinner with us and we had such a good time with her. We wished we would have spent more time with her in Melborne. We went on a city tour on a tram and saw some pretty sights. The tram was very full with people standing in the isles, so we had difficult looking out the windows to see the sights, but what we saw was good. We saw the stadium where they Formula one car races. Every year they re-pave the whole track and parking lots for the race. We saw the big skydome ferris wheel with gondola cars on it. Melbourne built this big gondola for sightseeing, and you can see the whole city from the gondola. But they have had problems with the cars on it, so it is closed for maintenance and has been for some time. I guess it unsafe for people, so they closed it. Now it is a white elephant for the city. We only spent one night at the Holiday Inn because it was so expensive. I paid $425 for two nights in the hotel. Contentinal breakfast at the hotel was $27 a person and we paid for the three of us to have breakfast, so it was $87.00 just for breakfast. We found food to be very expensive. Apples and oranges were $3.48/kg. Coke was $3 - $3.50 a can and big bottles were 3 for $7.00 at the grocery stores. Chips were $3.50 per bag for just a small bag. Peanut butter was $5.00 for just a very small jar. Everything in the grocery stores are very small packages and very expensive. Chocolate bars were smaller than our bars and $3.50 each or more.

We went to a Victory Market in Melbourne and I bought sovenirs there very cheap. I enjoyed shopping there, but I just could not walk so much that day and there was no where to stop and rest in the market.

We did go to the ocean and stayed for three nights in the cabins I told you about. They were a dive. They were trailers homes not cabins. We paid over $1.50 per night, so we only stayed three nights and went home. There were no restaurants around. One night Ardell wanted fish and chips so we went to a take away shop and got the most horrible fish and chips we have ever had. We asked for ketchup and they call that tomato sauce. They didn't have any of that. We did get some vinegar for our chips, but no tartar sauce or anything for them. They were horrible. We never did get to eat any sea food. We were told in Melbourne that lobster is $500 per person, so we didn't go there. Annette and Brian flatly refused to go out for a dinner, so she cooked for us at home the whole time we were there. If we did go out for a day trip she packed sandwiches for us on the road.

I found the Australian women to be very dramatic and out of this world. When they talk, it is not big it of tremdous, and if something happens to you, it just awful. We really should have only gone for three weeks and not the whole month. We did have a restful time sitting in the back yard and enjoying the birds come and eat apples off the tree in the back yard.

We will tell you more about it all when we see you. The flights were very long. We took a small plane from Wagga Wagga to Sydney. That was 1 1/2 hrs long. Then the flight to San Francisco from Sydney was 14 hours long. Then we had a 7 hr lay over in San Francisco. Then another 3 1/2 hours flight to Calgary. So we were glad to be home and in our own bed last night. We never slept at all on the flights so were were over tired when we got to bed at home.

Beth & Ryan - sorry we have missed the baby shower and the blessing. I hope you had a good time. We will be anxious to see Axel when you come to Calgary.

We missed all our family and especially the grandkids. I guess Christopher kept asking Paula where her mom was. Ashley missed us and the kids made a sign "Welcome Home Grandma and Papa" to hold up at the airport when we got home. It was sure cute.

Ok love you all.

Shirley