I advise traveling on Thanksgiving if you can (not sure what other holidays are like). On Thanksgiving day the plane was lightly booked and everyone was able to stretch out and sleep across two, three, or four seats. As a result I was able to sleep on most of the trans-oceanic flight. That made adjusting to the time change on the way over very easy. The odd thing was I even ended up on the same sleep schedule I have on the east coast of the U.S. -- go to sleep between 9pm - 11pm and get up between 5am - 7am. Strange but true.
I had arranged to stay with my friend Phil, his daughter Jess and grandson Sebastian (3 1/2). They live in Sunbury which is considered a suburb of Melbourne. Sunbury is a great town and has a suprisingly rich history. Do check the above link and scroll down for information on Sunbury.Here is a pic of Sebastian. He is a great kid. I dunno how people keep up with 3 - 4 year olds except to say they are easily distracted and that helps.
Anyway back to Sunbury.... I believe in the United States it would be considered more of a bedroom community. Sunbury has more rural feel to it although it is a town of about 30,000 people. This is due to lower overall population in Australia. (Australia has the land mass of the United States but a fraction of the population -- most of whom live along the coastline.) The highway between Sunbury and Tullamarine airport looked much like the picture below. The main exception being a large numberof wineries. The entire Yarra River valley seemed to be packed with wineries and I would love to go back and sample them all!
Here is a picture of a roadside view on the way to Sunbury.The cloud in the middle is actually smoke from a bush fire. Much of Australia has been under a drought for some time and brush fires are a very real threat. Most of the trees I saw were either a variety of gum tree or evergreens. Both are highly flammable -- explosively so in a drought.
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