Blogs from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Oceania

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Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne January 10th 2024

We hadn’t been on the road long this morning when we encountered our first traffic problem. A truck had veered into the median strip near Bookham, so all the traffic was being funnelled into a single lane and vehicles were in attendance looking at the logistics for extracting the truck from the median strip. It hadn’t rolled or crashed into trees so damage should have been minimal and … thank goodness … it had not careered all the way across the median strip and into oncoming traffic. Our first stop of the day was five miles from Gundagai at the Dog on the Tucker Box. Another trip along the Hume Highway, another photo of the famous dog! We encountered more people having car problems. Near where we had parked the truck a family had disconnected their ... read more
Dog on the Tuckerbox
Holbrook
Holbrook

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne January 4th 2024

Tour Day 87 – On 04 JAN, my final full day in Melbourne, I took a walk to the Queen Victoria Market. This blog presents some of the miscellaneous pictures I took during my stay and offers some pictures of the market.... read more
From My 20th Floor Window –  Melbourne, Australia
From My 20th Floor Window –  Melbourne, Australia
Misc. Photos from Around Melbourne, Australia

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne January 2nd 2024

Tour Day 85 – Melbourne hosts a starting point for a wide variety of attractions, but the New Year holiday found several attractions not operating for much of my short stay and the weather kept this “fair weather camper” at home for another day. Few of the attractions are close to or within Melbourne (ala the Opera House, the Sydney Bridge and Bondi Beach in Sydney), so a significant drive is required both before and after the attraction and the tour duration is long by the day trip norms I’ve encountered – generally 9 1/2 to 12 hours. Grampians National Park is a bit too rugged for me, sampling the wine and produce of the Yarra Valley just isn’t my flute of champagne and the drive home from the “as the sun is setting” penguin parade ... read more
Great Ocean Road Tour in Reverse
Great Ocean Road Tour in Reverse
Great Ocean Road Tour in Reverse

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne December 30th 2023

Tour Days 82-87 – Melbourne, Australia –To keep the number of photos per blog entry manageable, I decided to separate out the photos of the Australian countryside which I took in the 11-hour, 50-minute daytime train trip (0740 to 1830) from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia. Somewhere along the line I had the impression that the train route went through the Blue Mountains. That was a major reason I wasn’t chomping at the bit to take a day trip to the mountains while I was in Sydney. The train route does not go through the mountains but through open range (where I got a glimpse of my first wild kangaroo) and bountiful farm lands. My seating companion was a semi-retired 60ish gentleman from Sydney who was born in Istanbul, Turkey but felt a calling to move to ... read more
On the Train from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia
On the Train from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia
On the Train from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne October 2nd 2023

It took from 8:15pm on Saturday local time in Istanbul to 2:30am on Monday local time in Melbourne for us to get home. A long and tiring trip, but the flight itself was uneventful. What was, for so long, something we were looking forward to, is now memories that will last our lifetimes. So by the numbers, • We rode in 14 countries, • and dealt with 6 different currencies, • We travelled over 4,500kms in distance, • We climbed just on 20,000m in vertical height • We stayed in 67 different hotels/apartments and • We created countless memories. It's quite a thing to sit back now and reflect on what we have just completed. There was never a thought before hand of us not completing the trip, but while travelling it became obvious that any ... read more

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne September 27th 2023

NOTE: We are home. This is the final entry for this holiday. Good to his word, the captain had us touching down in Dubai just after midnight. With our flight to Melbourne at 2.20pm local time we had just over two hours until we were due to be in the air again for the longer leg of our journey home. With boarding commencing an hour before flight time we really only had an hour to stretch our legs. Fortunately, we didn’t have to change terminals at Dubai, just walk from one gate to another. It’s so much easier to fly in and out of the same terminal and not have to take the train between terminals. We decided to walk to our departure gate before sitting down. It’s much easier to be where you need to ... read more
Just before our Tullamarine smackdown!

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne September 19th 2023

So it’s day 100 or thereabouts, and today we finally head home. We’re starting to suspect that some countries are perhaps just slightly over-suspicious of us Aussies. We go through all the usual electronic security screening at Denpasar Airport and take our seats in the gate lounge. We’re then told we need to leave, and we can only go back in again after our hand luggage has been re-inspected, this time by hand, by a security guard. Huh? So sure enough a long queue forms outside the lounge while a single guard goes through everyone’s bags one by one. The time we were supposed to takeoff has come and gone, and security guard guy’s only done half the queue. And the question on everyone’s lips is of course "why", and why seemingly only for flights to ... read more

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne July 24th 2023

A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step... No it doesn't! The quote is often attributed to Confucius, probably because it's the only wise Chinese scholar most people know, but apparently it is not really from him. Not sure who it is really as I too do not know many wise Chinese scholars. Tzu, the Art of War author probably doesn't qualify. But whoever it was is still wrong. A journey even of less than a 1000 miles begins with heaps of time on screen booking accommodations, connecting flights, transport on GoOpti, insurance and the myriad of other details that need to be attended to. Jasmina, whose English is better than my Croatian, has become a pretty regular contributor to my email inbox. Julie, the travel agent and Yana from Traventuria who has organised ... read more
Along side the Yarra River.
 Back towards Mt Lofty.
The obligatory hill.

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne July 5th 2023

NOTE:We arrived home on Wednesday the 5th of July. Just catching up on the final blog post! Oh dear, the walls in our Gundagai motel were paper thin! Before we turned the light out we could hear snoring from the room on the right hand side of our room. That seemed to settle down after we put our books aside to go to sleep, but then we were woken by bouts of coughing from the room on the other side of us during the night. We haven’t done badly though as last night is the first time we have been aware of noises from adjacent rooms. So many motels/short-stay apartments and all so different! Some big, some vast, some small. And the showers! Walk-in showers, regular showers with screens and some with the corner cut off ... read more
Waiting for breakfast
Inside Niagara Cafe
Gundagai Rail Bridge

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Melbourne February 24th 2023

On Wednesday evening we took the tram to Kew where we went to India at Q by DD's kitchen. I had booked to eat there as Daman , the chef, is the Baillie of La Chaines in Victoria. We were greeted warmly by our host who then proceeded to suggest a menu which sounded great.Our first amuse bouche was pastry shells containing spices and topped by a selection of various toppings. then the entree, Chicken Tikka was brought out and flambed by the chef. This was probably the best dish of the night as the chicken was so tender and the spices excellent. For main courses we had a prawn dish and then a Lamb Biryani which had a pastry shell. Both were very tasty but also very filling. During the meal Daman's daughter came out ... read more
Flaming the  Chicken Tikka
Best dish of the night
Prawns




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