We are based in sunny Melbourne, the state capital for Victoria, in the land down under Australia. No that is the bit down south, not the country somewhere near Switzerland and Germany.

Australia is the "world's largest island and smallest continent". It is 7,741,220 square kilometres, about the same size as the mainland states of the USA, making it the world's sixth largest country. It covers approximately 5% of the Earth's land surface.

It lies between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and measures approximately 4,000 kilometres (2,480 miles) from east to west, and 3,200 kilometres (1,984 miles) from north to south. The coastline is some 34,218 kilometres (22,262 miles) long. With all that coastline its not hard to have some of the best beaches and waves in the entire world. Where else can you get 90 miles of nothing but sand beach in one continuous stretch.

The weather varies between extremely hot and humid, the tropics, to temperate. That is from high temperatures around the 50 Celsius (122 Farenheit) to -15 Celsius (5 Farenheit). The country has some deserts, well most of the country is semi-arid anyway. Australia's population lives mostly on the Eastern seaboard (about 90% in fact) and the rest are spread pretty thinly through the rest of the space.

As for the inhabitants well, the group with the longest connection with the land are called the "Indigenous Australians" and the rest are a mix of pretty much every race, colour and creed and started arriving after about 1771. According to the latest census data Melbourne still had one of the largest Greek speaking populations outside of Athens & Thessalonki, Melbourne"s Greek sister city.

Politically the place is governed on a Westminster two houses system. Voting is compulsory in all elections from local council election all the way through the big one, the federal stuff. Currently the country is a member of the British Commonwealth and officially the Queen of England is the Queen of Australia as well.

Melbourne is down the bottom part of the country. Not the bit sticking out the bottom that is Tasmania still part of Australia, just not attached. If you click on the Australia looking bit of land, the big orange blob on the bottom right side of the image, it will give you a bigger map of Australia.

What's good about Melbourne?

Well let's start with the food. Always a good thing to know about in a strange city. The restaurant scene in or near the city is impressive. It ranges from quick snack places, food courts through to the most expensive and all within a 10 minute wander from the centre of the city. Here are a few sites that may be able to help, no suggestions from us.

• Melbourne Diners Guide
• The Restaurant Guide
• Melbourne @ cityseach.com.au

If your at a loose end there is even some historic things to see, like Old Melbourne Gaol, Polly Woodside Maritime Museum, Shot Tower and a well known drinking hole called Young and Jackson's.

Then there is the artistic side of things, so Museum of Victoria, Victorian Arts Centre, Collins Place Art & Craft Market and Victorian Police Museum or maybe you cup of tea is the sports. Of course you known that Melbourne hosts the Australian Grand Prix

If your interested, or visiting here soon, try this link for more information on Melbourne. The Age City Search or Lonely Planet Melbourne or even Victorian government site. and if you need to get around the place try the public transport, Melbourne's Train and Tram map

If you want to see the latest satellite weather map for Australia, well at least the cloud bits of it, then try this link. Satellite Image or you can see what the weather is at the moment in Victoria. For those that require a visual of Melbourne this link is to a webcam network that covers the Central Business District (downtown) and is interesting Omni Webcam.