December we arrived in Australia!!

We have been here in Melbourne, Australia for almost a month now and finally I am able to set up this blog site. The trip to the land down under started on December 6th. We left Ottawa in the evening and flew through Washington to L.A. We arrived in L.A. close to midnight and had to overnight at an airport hotel. It was so cold in L.A. that we had to go and buy hoodies to stay warm. We were surprised expecting to have landed in warmer weather. Most of the day in L.A. was spent relaxing. We were so tired from the house move of all of our stuff to storage that we needed to recuperate!! We went out to buy our sweaters, checked the airport to make sure we knew where to go (LAX is huge!!) and just relaxed at the hotel. We had a nice dinner and headed out to the airport. The flight to Australia was long 15hours but Virgin Australian airlines was great, free blanket, headphones, meals and great hospitality. We landed at Melbourne airport on Dec. 8th, quite disoriented with regard to time! After going through customs and immigration we went through a gate to find two Parks Victoria staff waiting for us and greeting us. How nice it was to have someone greet us at the airport and help us with our bags. Chris Smith and Catherine Bessant, two Parks Victoria staff who I am now working with, drove us to our hotel and gave us an introduction to Melbourne as we drove in to the city.