The apartments where four of us are staying are located on the waterfront at the entrance to a long wooden pier named Gem Pier which has various boats tied to it including an old World War II Royal Australian Navy minesweeper named the HMAS Castlemaine. This morning as we met to drive into work and as we were waiting on the final student an old man walked by and started talking to us. Turns out he was a crewmember on the minesweeper during the war and now works as a volunteer giving tours to school children and veteran's groups. As we talked he asked if we wanted to have a private tour and we jumped at the chance. He took us throughout the old ship and really gave us a good tour. He was 85 years old and climbed up and down the ladders faster than we could. We ended up arriving at work almost an hour late but it was a neat and unexpected start to the day.
Williamstown is home of one of the largest shipbuilding companies in Australia and Asia and continues to build warships today. The old minesweeper was built here in 1943. The picture at right is the Old Salt and three of our class students. Today the sun finally came out and things are drying up and maybe even warming up a little but it is still cold and windy. In the afternoon we drove into Melbourne city and it is in many ways a lot like Houston with tall skyscrapers built of mirrored glass windows.
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