Melbourne is the 13th largest city in the world with a population of 3.3M. It has a rich cultural life befitting a temperate climate with a great variety of theatre, art and concerts. It has some of the best golf courses in the world, and there are many. It is the most British of the Australian cities being settled by English and Scottish free settlers. The gold rush in 1852 pumped great wealth into the Colony inducing economic growth in a "substantial" and "Presbyterian" way. It has traditionally been the money centre of Australia. 80% of the charitable trusts in Australia are in Melbourne.

Overseas visitors speak highly of Melbourne as a beautiful city and it is currently seeing somewhat of a tourist boom. Sydney is more spectacular due to its Harbour, Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the drama of the city draped curvingly round the hills of the harbour. Gore Vidal said: "Sydney is the city that San Francisco thinks it is"! Melbourne on the other hand is more sedate and stable, not the same chutzpah ´in-your-face´ as Sydney.

Our home is a middle class family home in a treed (eucalypt gum trees) and curving street in a dormitory suburb 10 miles from the city center known as "The Bellbird Area," due to the tinkling call of bellbirds all day long. Blackburn Lake - 130 acres of natural bushland - is at the end of our street and makes for daily au natural Australian bush walks. The CBD is 20 minutes away by freeway; or 25 minutes by suburban train, which is 12 minutes walk from our home. It has four bedrooms - two with doubles and two with singles. Two of the bedrooms are used as studies with large library in each together with cable internet and PCs. We raised our three children in this home, (all of whom live nearby and would be happy to help you in any way) and thereby it is a comfortable family home.

Facilities include large backyard, Webber BBQ, spa in bathroom, two showers, two toilets, auto washing machine and dryer, TV, VCR, PC in each study including cable internet, large family room, large lounge/dining room with open fire place, upright piano, oboe for those so inclined!, quality hi fi plus CD collection - mostly classical, micro wave, convection gas oven, gas stove and gas central heating, Faema automatic cappuccino machine, store-room, lock-up garage with auto roller door, two modern 24 gear mountain bikes with springs fore and aft - the bike tracks to the City are entirely through bushland and are great, large front garden (cared for by gardener).

Shops including full supermarket are three minutes away by car or five minutes by bike. Excellent local library, popular coffee shop and tennis courts are ten minutes walk away. Skiing is available during July, August September and is 3 to 4 hours drive depending on which mountain you go to. Neighbours are excellent and would warmly help you with any queries.

Mostly we are flexible as to time and can fit in with most dates. Ideally we would like 6 weeks swap, however, we will flex as required. We are non-smokers and comfortable with pets.

What do you think?