Final Full day in Melbourne

After picking up breakfast in a bakery shop we caught the tram down to the pier where we have to load up tomorrow. Turns out the Norwegian Sun is already in town so it was easy to see where we have to go (and the tram is super easy and direct from here).

Next it was another couple of trams to get to the war memorial. Very well done! We got some nice photos from the top of the building. 

German Grenada’s from WW1

The advance made by the Australian and New Zealanders at which point it stalled and one week later the Canadians came on to the line,

From there it was a short walk to the primary visitation location today, that being the Royal Botanical Gardens. With blue skies and perfect temperatures it was a STUNNING time and place to visit. This place is MAGNIFICENT. 

We wandered around for quite a while enjoying the sights before grabbing a couple of pastries to keep us going. The birds in the area were very aggressive and we were forever “shooing” them away. 

The croissant was as big as our hands and very yummy.

We caught a tram back to the far edge of the CBD and made our way to St Patrick’s cathedral. It had some wonderful stained glass windows. 

Caro needed a new hat and so we walked a few blocks to get one, before walking back to the hotel. On the way we stopped in to check out the following (see photo); however I didn’t pursue a purchase ‘cause the steering wheel is on the wrong side!

The hotel has a  guest laundry room so we did ours. 

We went out to a Thai restaurant for a nice supper followed afterwards by catching the tram up to Federation Square. 

At Federation Square we sat down with many other people watching a men’s match between an American and an Italian. Turns out the Italian is the number one player in the world (Sinner). We had no clue until I googled him. Sinner won in three sets but we had already left after two sets and had walked back to the hotel (1.8km).

The only slacker day was the Tuesday when we had an 11 hour train ride.

Road Trip!

We left this morning at 0730 for our ‘all day’ small group tour going along the Great Ocean Road ( a road originally hand built by returning WW1 soldiers).

At our first stop ( a small recreation area) the driver set up tea/coffee and Timtams for us while we went to the edge of the park and spotted kangaroos in the distance.

Zoom in on the middle of the photo to see a couple of kangaroos.

We entered the Great Ocean Road at Anglesea. 

There were very serious bush fires here in the 80’s (I think) killing 35 people and taking out complete towns. 

The following photo taken after we had been through the tourist resort town of Lorne. 

Somewhere around here both Caro and I thought we saw ( independently) koalas high up in the trees. It was extremely hard to confirm as we going fast. 

We stopped at Apollo Bay. Here we had a large choice of restaurants etc. to pick up our lunch. Caro and I decided on pies from a bakery. I had scallops and Carolina had fish. Both were extremely tasty!

Our next stop was a little nature area where we did a walk through the rain forest. 

The 12 apostles is an extremely famous series of rock formations in the ocean. There were huge amounts of people viewing and I am sure multiple thousands of photos a day. Absolutely amazing views. The first photos are viewing towards the west

The second set are taken further down the coast at the end of the “apostles”

Came back through a major dairy area and after a break in a town for snacks and bathrooms we drove another two hours back to Melbourne. 

We gave the driver/guide a nice tip for the long day, and great commentary, and he was quite surprised and happy to receive it ( must not be typical here to tip drivers). He gave us many “thanks”.

At the zoo

 We had a sleep in day (not that it really mattered as we were awake at pretty much the usual times).

We picked up a couple of MyKi cards (for the tram service) and loaded them up with enough to keep us going until Sunday. Unfortunately Caro lost her card so ended up buying her another one at the end of the day (and basically she took a chance “riding the rails” without paying). I tried paying twice with my card but it doesn’t work like that.

First stop was the zoo. Melbourne has a beautiful zoo and we spent four

Death adder

                            

Cobra

                            Platypus reaching up with beak (snout?) to get leaf to eat

                                                                        So cuddly

                            
                                                    One more (just because!)

                                                            Wombat

Kangaroos

                                                            Emu

                                                            Peccary

                                                        Small penguins

                                                        Silverback Lowland gorilla

                                                            One of the babies in the water

                        
                                                            Orangutan 

                                                            Dingo

                                                    A zoomed half photo of a Tasmanian Devil

After the zoo was finished we went back to the CBD and went directly to the Queen Victoria market where Caro did some more souvenir shopping and picked up some fruit. It’s a “happening place” and is well known to the people here.

Now it was off to the Victoria State library. It is a gorgeous building and was full of people reading etc. I was there to see something of interest to me. It was the armour used in the final gun fight with police by an extremely famous bush ranger named Ned Kelly. He is as famous here as Robin Hood in England and Jesse James in the US.

The armour protected him from getting shot and incapacitated  in the core of his body (as evidenced by the dents in the metal). Unfortunately for Ned the police changed tactics and shot him in his unprotected legs. His three compatriots were killed in the shoot out but he survived to face a trial (and then be hanged)

It was time for a late lunch/early supper so we walked out of the  area to a street recommended by our tour guide yesterday. Here we had a choice of multiple kinds of food restaurants. We knew there were good Italian places here so we picked one with many patrons (a VERY good choice by us)

One of the best Italian dishes we have ever had, Pasta El Forno-Russo.

We walked back into the CBD distrust (free trams in this area of town) and soon caught the touristy tram #35 back to our area.

After a nice break in our room we went out to purchase some food for our in-room breakfast tomorrow morning.

Caro tells me we walked another 25 km today!