Melbourne.

"We're thinking about going to Melbourne for Easter Break. Wanna go with us?" Tess and Rachel asked me several weeks ago.

"Sounds like fun. Why not?" I replied. Did I know anything about Melbourne other than it's Australia's second largest city and that it was supposed to be a bit more artsy than Sydney? Not really. Did I know that the mountains around Melbourne are absolutely gorgeous and in many ways similar to the mountains in Tennessee? Nope. Did I have any specific things I wanted to do in Melbourne? Nope. Basically, I was asked if I wanted to go on a trip and I said sure without giving it much thought.

Thus, Thursday 21 of April, I found myself getting onto a night train that would, with roughly 10 hours of travel time, take me across much of the Australian east coast to a destination of which I knew very little. Traveling with me were the aforementioned Tess and Rachel, as well as Alessandra and Nick. The train ride was not terrible, though none of us really got good sleep. The seats were not the most comfortable in the world and having many stops along the route resulted in frequent awakenings. Rachel and I sat together, neither of us sleeping very successfully with the occasional brief conversation about it. "This stop looks like a barn," she said to me sometime around 3 or 4 in the morning.

"Huh," I replied. "I can't see it. My contacts aren't in. It's just a blur."

"Well, it's definitely a barn."

Not even cuddling could help us slip into the world of dreams. We were in a perpetual state of tired near-sleep. But really, the train travel was not bad. Just tiring.

Nick lived in Melbourne for two years earlier in his life--once when he was six and once when he was fifteen. Thus, he had connections that resulted in us having a destination of the Lilydale train station--Lilydale being one of the suburbs of the city. However, that Friday, Good Friday, we spent meandering about the city itself.

As it turned out, the free tram that goes around central Melbourne only closes two days a year: Christmas and Good Friday. Thus, we walked. A lot. We found our way to a park, meeting a man in a bunny suit on the way. We went to a war memorial. We walked down through the city to another park with a lake. We saw black swans. We found our way to a stretch of restaurants, where we ate wonderful pizza. We meandered across a dock that ended up placing us along rocks where penguins live and thus we got to see some penguins. We played cards. And then we found our way to a tram which we paid to take us back to the train station. We walked something like 10 or 11 kilos throughout that day, which is quite a bit to do with backpacks full of a weekends' worth of clothes just after a long train ride during which little sleep occurred. Fortunately, the weather was good for us--occasional spurts of light rain cooled us down but didn't last long enough to be annoying.

Finally, we got onto a train to head to Lilydale where Stan and his son Daniel, friends of Nick's family, met us. We loaded into their vehicles and headed to their lovely home in Mt. Evelyn, a beautiful little town of nice people. We were served some wonderful food, chatted briefly, and the girls were driven to the Tromps, another family of friends who opened their home to us travelers. After a good night of sleep, we set off with Stan and Daniel to travel through the mountains.

We stopped by rivers. We saw an eccentric house. We entered a rain forest. We hiked. We went on mountain tops with incredible overlooks. We had a barbie in the middle of the woods. We were out all day, seeing beautiful sights and having excellent conversations. We went to a farm owned by Stan's nephew. We were in awe of the land. And then we went back to Stan's, where we ate good food again.

The next day we visited their church for Easter Sunday. This was the church Nick's father had preached out when his family lived in Melbourne. It was a nice place with welcoming people. I then went with the girls to the Tromp household for lunch, while Nick caught up with friends he'd not seen in years. We went for a walk while Rachel Tromp, a girl just a little younger than us, took her horse for a ride. The path was similar to the Virginia Creeper Trail--indeed, it was even a path converted from an old railway. After about an hour of walking, we got coffee at a wonderful shop converted from an old Harry Potter style train.

After returning the the Tromps, playing cards, and good dinner at Stan's, we set forth again, going to an incredible overlook that looked across the city that night. The lights were incredible. We then returned to Stan's, where we watched the classic Australian movie The Castle. The next morning, we got up early and returned to the city, where we caught a train back home to Sydney.

The weekend was wonderful. It was beautiful and I did not want to leave Melbourne. We saw so much so quickly and were so welcomed by such wonderful people. I cannot imagine spending that break better. And I didn't plan a single part of it. I was just invited, said sure, and ended up having a wonderful time. Then, almost as soon as the Melbourne trip came to a close, we got on a bus to head westward into the Outback. But that's another story.