Day 1

Day One began as an extension of the departure day. Our flight out of Calgary was delayed by about an hour, which left us scrambling in LAX. We ended up all scrambled across the plane. Future reference: Window seats are way easier to sleep in. It's 8:00 PM Sat. 28th local time (4ish AM Calgary time) and I haven't slept for more than 20 minutes since 7 AM on the 26th. We're tired, we're hungry and we couldn't be happier! As we left the airport, the first thing I noticed was that gas is fricken expensive. $154.7 per litre.

We got to the hostel around noon, where we ditched our bags and hit the town. The hostel we are staying at is very nice and close to everything in St. Kilda, including the Ocean.

I dropped my ski gear off and have noticed that all the Australians here are very friendly and helpful. Very nice people. Since we had the day off, we killed some Jetlag with Caffine and found a nice bar for lunch. I got an Australian phone number (+61 04 3411 4007) and ran some errands.

We then met up with 2 more arriving this afternoon and wandered around some more. Closer to 5ish, we went to the beach to see the baby penguins at sunset and snag some awesome pictures of downtown Melbourne.  Purchased some groceries and were called "Fresh-Off-The-Boaties" because none of us bought anything remotely australian. Now it is time to sleep, for many many hours and get ready for the start of our tour tomorrow at 8 PM. Until then.

Geoff