April 4 – Beginning our Melbourne Tours

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Today we start the final phase (last several days) of our vacation. We are in Melbourne Australia and we have several more excursions planned, thanks to the tremendous help of Kelly Hoban, Travel Consultant from Qantas Vacations in California. Back in early February, Kelly was instrumental in finding and scheduling tours that addressed everything we wanted to see in the Melbourne area. THANK YOU very much. [e-mail] The day began with a 7:10 pickup from the lobby, so David had gone to a pastry shop and gotten a croissant and Danish so we would have something quick to eat before we started out tour. The hotel does serve a breakfast but they said it was $29 each and we didn’t have time to enjoy that kind of a meal before heading off for our tour. So we rose early, got dressed, ate our pastries and tea, and went downstairs for the pickup. Our bus arrived right on time and proceeded to pick up more folks around town before taking everyone to their central location at Federation Square. We transferred to the correct bus for our morning tour of City Highlights. The first thing I learned is that Melbourne is pronounced Mel-burn and not Mel-born. The driver (Richard) seemed especially proud of his city and made several good-natured comparisons show how Melbourne was better than Sydney. In fact, he reported that an international judging commitee had four times chosen Melbourne as the best city to live in worldwide, but Sydney had never been selected for that honor. There is a trolley system through the main part of the city. That partly comes about because the original city had been designed instead of just growing randomly. The streets are specified to be 99 feet wide. This allows 4 lanes of traffic and trolley lines down the middle, or 4 lanes for cars and parking on each side. In either case, this city feels more open and not a shoulder-to-shoulder as you get in some other places. Also, the old buildings have all been designated by the National Trust to have to remain with the same appearance on the outside (apparently they can be completely remodeled on the inside). This results in a lot of interesting architectures and original balconies, trellises, doorways and windows, etc. However there are also many skyscrapers and a great deal of high rise apartment and office buildings. One of the first lessons we learned from Richard was the “hook turn”. This is a method which all the drivers appear to know and employ when making a right turn across a trolley line at a traffic light. First remember that they all drive on the left hand side of the road. Now a right turn is made from the left lane with your right blinker on. You pull out into the intersection and wait for your light to turn red. Once it turns red, then (and not before) can you complete the right turn. Actually we think he was just trying to keep us from thinking he was a terrible driver rather than educating us, but we did not have any accidents all day and he did it many times. According to Richard, Melbourne was originally populated as a result of sheep farmers running out of good land in Tasmania and deciding to start their shepherding operation in the Melbourne area. The sheep’s wool is of very high quality and was shipped to England to be made into fine men’s suits. Apparently it is still very high quality, but who knows where the suits are made these days. In 1851, the citizens of Melbourne had gotten tired of being ruled by the government in Sydney, so they requested the queen to make them a separate state. They offered to call it Victoria (that was her name) if she agreed, and that is how the state of Victoria came to be. Also that year was a big gold strike in the new state, so Victoria become very prosperous soon after being organized. Melbourne became the state capital. The original developers created a plan for the city which not only produced the wide streets, but also required that 1 out of every 5 acres of land had to be held aside for public parks. That still exists today and Melbourne has a large amount of “green space” within the city boundaries. The suburbs do not have to follow that rule, but the city center has a lot of open area with lots of grass, trees, and flowering bushes. Richard said that the weather in Melbourne changes significantly during the year. In the summer it gets to be hot and dry but in their winter it can be cold and wet. We had cooler temperatures than we have experienced anywhere else on our trip, with the high today being in the middle 60s. Janet wore a jacket all through our excursion and wished she it had been along on the train ride yesterday. It was overcast all day, but we did not have any rain. The bus made two stops during the morning. We had almost 30 minutes at the Fitzroy Gardens, where we go to visit the Conservatory with many varieties of flowering plants. It was very interesting. In the gardens there were many giant Elm Trees (actually there are lots of them throughout the city) with 4-foot plastic bands around the trunk. Richard explained that this was to protect them from opossums which otherwise would climb the trees to eat the new sprouts and leaves. The second stop was at the Shrine of Remembrance. This is a monument initially created to honor all the Victorians who had gone to fight in World War I, from 1914 – 1918. Approximately 20% of these young men never returned home and this shrine was developed to honor their memories. Since that time, there have been additions to honor Victorian veterans from WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, and many other wars and police actions, up through the Gulf War and Afghanistan. This somber shrine is quite large with a great deal of information included inside. It fit in with the book that Janet had read for the book club on board the ship. It was very interesting to see it after having an Australian viewpoint of that war. It was a very pivotal time in their history and seems to have affected many of them. Across the street are the botanical gardens. We had enough time to also walk around in there a little and get some morning tea at the café. Then we got back on the bus and headed to Federation Square again. This concluded our morning tour. We walked down the street and found a café where we were able to get sandwiches and chips (they really were French fries) for lunch. It appeared from the map that we were just a short distance from our hotel so we started walking back. In actuality David had misjudged our location and we were making a longer walk than planned. It was quite difficult for Janet but we did get back to the hotel. The walk along the river bank was picturesque, but now her knee is hurting again. We had planned to do a small final load of laundry to allow us to finish the trip. Previous e-mail had indicated that a Laundromat was nearby, but it is no longer there and we had no second choice. The hotel has a laundry service, but it is extremely expensive and we did not discover the situation until after today’s deadline anyway (thus would have been a 100% surcharge above the high prices). So we washed a few things in the sink and hung them up to dry. When we left the room this morning we set the flag to request the room to be cleaned, but when we returned at 1:00 it had not been done. That would have NEVER happened on the cruise ship and we were disappointed in this respect. We will skip the servicing today and will keep in mind how slowly they get to cleaning the rooms. Janet was able to use the internet service to check mail and update the bank activities. We have not heard anything about her Brother Mike’s condition, but we assume that no news is good news. We also saw on the TV that some rain storms are around St Louis, so we hope no problems come from that either. This evening we had a second excursion. Kelly had made us reservation on a Dinner Tram Car. We were able to rest for a few hours in the afternoon and then change for dinner. We got a taxi to take us down just a few blocks to the proper location and they were expecting us as hoped at 5:30. We had been warned not to be late or they would leave without us, but that all turned out alright. There were actually 3 cars and we were assigned our place before anything arrived. We sat opposite a couple from Arizona who had been touring Australia for 3 weeks so we compared notes. The car itself was decorated in an old Victorian style and was a whole lot of fun. Obviously the tram had to follow the tracks, but it took us lots of places throughout the city, and most of the time David left his camera in the case and enjoyed the meal instead of snapping photos. The meal started with an appetizer of crackers and a spread. At the same time they served a local sparkling wine for both of us. The main course was either chicken or beef (sorry Father Keller but there was no fish option here on Friday evening) and both turned out to be delicious. With that they served a local Victorian wine and David got a bottle of lager. For dessert there was a soft cheesecake and a rich brownie, both of which were good. They served coffee/tea and liquors. The tram had to stick to a schedule and we not only left on time, but we returned on time too (about 7:30). There is a second tour for “late dinner” people, so we had to end and let the new people in. This left us a few blocks from the hotel. After a couple of glasses of champagne, a couple of glasses of wine, and a glass of Bailey, Janet felt good enough to walk back to the hotel. David had a couple of champagnes, 2 lagers, and 2 ports. He was feeling pretty good too. But we really enjoyed the evening and are happy that Kelly had recommended the excursion and we hope everything else works out equally well. Tomorrow we do not start our activities until just past noon, so we are going to sleep in and have a late breakfast. Then we will do our activities and try to get another blog posted after we return in the evening. If that posting is late, you will understand why. Anyway, we had a very good day today.

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