Blogs from Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 4

In our final couple of weeks, we have focused on a few areas not yet visited. St. Kilda’s Beach is on the south east side of the city centre and a short tram ride (assuming you get off at the right station) from the main railway station at Flinders Street. There is a nice board walk with a few restaurants and a well maintained beach. We were there mid week and the weather was “coolish” so it wasn’t busy, however, it was easy to imagine the area would be packed in prime time. The surrounding area was a little tired and disappointing. A promenade close by was lined with 2nd and 3rd tier retail shops and a carnival facility with a Ferris wheel and roller coaster was somewhat distracted from a reasonably nice waterfront location. The ... read more

About 1/2 hour drive from Point Cook, we discovered the Werribee Park Mansion. The property was once owned and developed by the Chirnside brothers who immigrated from Scotland in the mid 1800’s and made their fortune in agriculture. At one time they held 80,000 sheep and over 90,000 acres of pastural land. After changing ownership a few times, including the Catholic Church that added an extension for a seminary, the site now includes a museum and a recently added upscale hotel and spa. Surrounding the buildings, there are some beautifully manicured grounds containing a variety of unique species of trees from around the world. We were somewhat startled to see dozens of fox bats (quite large up to 1kg) hanging upside down in one of those trees. Our weekends have been reserved for some combination of ... read more

After we had watched the Adelaide Invitational Track and Field Meet, Fletcher received an invitation to attend the Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne which was a World Athletics Gold event. The last time we had gone to Melbourne was two years ago and that was for Maurie's funera,l so we thought, "Why not?"and accepted the invitation. We booked two nights' accommodation at the Amora Riverwalk Hotel which our nephew Tim Bilston manages and then decided to drive over, taking out'r time as we had not done the drive for nearly 30 years. We set out on Tuesday morning about 10am. Originally I was supposed to take a tour that morning so we had not planned to leave until much later, but a change in numbers for the tour allowed be to go earlier. I had booked ... read more

Mornington Peninsula is on the south east side of Melbourne and at its most extreme westerly tip is Point Nepean National Park. As opposed to our last visit to the peninsula, which required us to drive through the city, we took the 40 minute ferry ride from Queenscliff which is on the opposite side of the narrow channel protecting Port Phillip bay. The National Park includes numerous hiking trails, the remnants of a quarantine centre and Fort Nepean, a 19th/20th century military installation. The quarantine centre, established in mid 1800’s, contained numerous outbuildings including a hospital and other facilities in which new immigrants were screened for communicable diseases. For example, the “Foul Luggage room” contained a semi automated method of decontaminating all luggage using formaldehyde and other chemicals. We hiked the fairly easy 11 km return ... read more

Australia has 28% of it’s population foreign born (Canada‘s is 23%) and with the largest segment of immigrants from China, it’s unsurprising that Chinese New Year is a big celebration in Melbourne. On a pleasant Sunday afternoon, we took the train to the city centre and attended the launch of the big celebration and parade. The crowds, mostly unmasked, were large and concentrated around China town. Its estimated 80,000 people were packed into a few streets to watch the parade and participate in other activities . In the Chinese Zodiac calendar, 2023 is the year of the Rabbit. According to the BBC; ”2022 was the Year of the Tiger and decorated as a positive and active energy in Chinese ... read more