The first day went fairly well.....

We drove around--mostly along the coast today---and are off to a good start. The class consists of three Australians and two New Zealanders so everybody speaks English this time around. The weather is still wet and cold but late this afternoon the sun did break out so maybe we'll have better weather tomorrow.

As we were driving today we came across this strange tower along the seawall. It's over a hundred years old and it was called a "time tower" that dates back to the era of the wooden sailing ships that docked here at Melbourne. If you look closely at the top of the tower there is a ball--actually its a metal ball and in the old days the timekeeper would hoist the ballup to the top of the spindle and everyday at 1:00 he would drop the ball down the shaft onto a metal plate making a loud ring that could be heard throughout the harbour. The captains on the sailing ships would set their sailing schedules and track the tide levels based upon this loud ring every day. The tower itself was built by convict labor brought in from England and the colonies.

As you might imagine this area was extremely important to the British back then and Fort Gellibrand was established here to protect the coast from foreign invasions as well as to provide some level of security against piracy on the high seas. To the left is one of the 1867 coastal cannons that was used to protect Melbourne Harbour. Today Fort Gellibrand is a training center for Australian commando units and is still an active military installation--the oldest in Australia.

Hoping for sunshine tomorrow and a little warmer weather.....