Day 24 Melbourne.... And the jeans are out!

---

So our first full day in Melbourne started with a serious lie in. Blame it on a slight indulgence the previous night and a very comfy bed. We have slept in lots of comfy beds and, in the main six foot ones. We are now seriously considering replacing our bed at home with a six foot one, it's like sleeping all on your own!

Anyway apart from the annoying housekeeping that efficiently comes with posh hotels (they have a separate maid to stock up your duty free) we managed to stay in bed till 9.30 when we decided to begin our day.

Dressing was a bit depressing. Jeans and hoodies! Ian was so determined to avoid the hoodie that he refused to wear it. Then took one step outside and had to go back to the 19th floor to pick his up!

Breakfast was held in the food court so we could use the free wifi to check on how our daughters interviews had gone. Then we headed off to the city centre tram.

This is a free circular route with a sort of audio commentary that fails to compete with the noise of the tram! But we thought it would help us to find our bearings, which we hadn't really done on the dinner tram due to alcohol and darkness. It is really useful to get an understanding of the city layout. We travelled the whole circle and decided to visit the Melbourne museum so travelled a bit more to get to the appropriate stop.

The museum is part museum/part IMAX which threw us at first. We then spent a couple of hours discovering the facts around the history of Melbourne and some of the indigenous culture. We also had to look at the dinosaurs cos all boys do whatever their age.

Melbourne history was quite fascinating. I was unaware how much later then Sydney it had been established. The town was first founded in 1835 when John Batman arrived and 'purchased' a large amount of aboriginal land for the initial payment of some axes, blankets and scissors! However what was most amazing was the speed by which the town then grew. By 1837 the town had all types of physical Infrastructure of roads, churches as well as social ones like town officials, newspapers etc. By 1847, Queen Victoria declared it a city. It's hard to believe we could deliver the same amount in such a short period of time now.

We also learnt about the creation story of this area whose creature is called bunjil (an eagle) which is told in a most effective way using a simple moving sculpture supported by light and sound. Really had the kids (and us) fully engaged.

We left the museum and decided to walk down to the laneways, a part of Melbourne that is home to lots of small coffee shops, boutiques etc and is seen to be a unique offering of Melbourne. These are pedestrian lanes between the chequer board road layout.

We stopped for a late lunch in one of the few cafés still open (we have discovered that Australia doesn't seem to do late opening in anything!). Pizza and calamari to share. Yummy!

Then a return to the hotel with the plan to head out later to the Queen Victoria market for the Wednesday night market. The night market is food and clothing, not the normal day one. It only runs once a week from mid November till January. But then it started to rain, and then we remembered were not really that bothered by markets, so even though it's on all the must do lists we decided WE didn't need to.

On the way back to the hotel though we had seen a noodle festival being held on the south bank just by the hotel as part of the Melbourne food festival so instead we popped there (rain had stopped by then) to grab some noodles, along with what seemed like most of Melbourne, before heading to bed ready for our long day tomorrow on the great ocean road.

---

Photos

View from south bank
On the way to our day out!

City centre circle tram
Sorry! Bit slow getting the camera out!

Melbourne Laneways
Think this is called the royal arcade? Quite festive!