The long goodbye

On Friday we all said goodbye to our host families, packed our now heavy bags and made our way to Melbourne. Jenna had one final PD day with a major digital signage company in Melbourne while the rest of us took a more relaxing drive to the city with Charlie. We all met up for lunch and then set off on foot to find the Victoria Market. We had a good look around and most of the group managed to inject some more money into the Aussie economy. Then we walked back through the city to Flinders and King street so we could all experience the Melbourne Aquarium which was amazing. Around 5:30 we caught a tram to Latrobte Steet and walked to Lygon street to look for a place to have dinner.

Lygon street has over 100 restaurants on it so we took our time selecting the right restaurant for our "last supper" together as a team. Eventually we selected Santinos and enjoyed an excellant Italian meal and wine with Charlie and Jan who were such an important part of our few days in Tralraglon. Around 10pm we drove to our accomodation which was the Holiday Inn at the airport as the girls had an 8am flight the next morning.

We had a wonderful final night together which included a Tim Tam tasting competition, several rounds of our "Music Trivia contest" and all getting an Aussie Tattoo!

5:30am came around much too soon and we all met up and took the shuttle to the airport and got the girls checked in and eventually to the gate for the flight to Sydney for Carolyn and Toronto for Shelley and Jenna.

Several of our good Australian friends showed up at the departure gate to see our GSE trip officially end (and perhaps ensure "The golden girls" got on the plane!) including Rotarians David and Tony.

The flight was called and the three girls got on the plane and began the final leg of their amazing adventure.