Monday 31st March

We were both a bit jaded today! The weather was lovely when we woke but by the time we’d sorted ourselves out and got ready (11.30am) it was pouring! That didn’t help the general mood!! Nevertheless – ever onward with the big adventure, let nothing stand in the way….

As I said yesterday, the tram stop is right outside the motel, so Tom got the tickets and we rushed across the road in the pouring rain to catch it. $6.50 each to ride the trams all day, and, boy, are there trams in Melbourne! Imagine the underground, but shorter and overground and you’ve just about got the picture – they are everywhere, old ones,

new ones, short ones, long ones, bendy ones! You can’t get a decent view of the buildings because the tram wires are in the way, but it’s a great way to travel. The rain had stopped by the time we were halfway to town so we packed the waterproofs in the rucksack – and there they stayed for the rest of the day, sod’s law! If we hadn’t taken them, it would have poured all day.

The first thing we did was to go on the free tram which circles the city centre – like the free bus in Brisbane, it gives you a chance to see where you would like to visit without wearing out the shoe leather too early in the day! Then we had a coffee and Tom had a Danish – I was being good, before exploring.

We did walk quite a lot as well – there are a lot of streets that constitute the centre, in fact the whole city seems to be spread out over a vast area. We noticed yesterday that we were in the suburbs virtually from the time we reached Hwy32 at Montrose, about 20kms into the centre. Most of the housing is single storey, there are lots of green spaces, and all the streets are wide so I suppose if you compressed all that into our type of housing, with much of the residential areas towards the centre of the city as flats, the total area would be much less. There are over 3 million inhabitants in Melbourne – that’s a lot to spread out in single storey accommodation. The only high rise buildings are in the business district and some of them are pretty amazing.

Having decided on a couple of visits, first we went up the Eureka Tower, the highest residential building in the southern hemisphere with the highest viewing platform on floor 88. Unlike the Skytower in Auckland, this lift did not have a glass floor (thank goodness, as I’m sure we rose and descended even faster). The views were spectacular even though visibility was not as clear. You can go out onto the Edge – a glass platform with mesh sides – for an extra payment, but they were warning that it was very blustery and even Tom baulked at paying $12 for a couple of minutes on a glass floor (especially as you could only see in one direction from it). If you think I seem to be conquering my fear of heights, don’t be misled – if I’m inside a building with plenty of thick glass and walls between me and the outside and if I only walk a few paces then stop and look out while stationary, I’m fine. Walking whilst looking or looking down gets the old balance out of true and I feel quite queasy, but at least I have learned to cope and it means I haven’t missed out on some amazing views.

After descending from Eureka, we walked across the river Yarra on a very strangely shaped bridge, then caught the free tram again round to the Old Melbourne Gaol. We’d just missed one of the tours and it meant hanging around for the next, so we caught another tram and went down to the harbour where there are some strange pieces of art along the waterfront. The weather started to look a bit menacing again, so we nipped into a small café for another coffee and sticky. It’s the cheapest we’ve had since we arrived in Oz, 2 coffees and a huge square of carrot cake, which we shared, cost just $7.80 (about £3.70) – it’s usually $3.50 for each coffee. Having revived our flagging feet, we walked over the main railway lines (lots) into the station and back towards the centre. There are little (and not so little) arcades of shops all over the place, some old and ornate, some very modern.

We found a secondhand book shop with a good range of books and could have bought loads, but again, there’s the problem of getting them home, so we just looked. Lorna had e-mailed us a page from her bird book with photos of some of the birds we’d seen – the grey, pink and white birds are galahs, and I found a Birds of Australia book which showed the bright red and blue bird we saw in Canberra. I think it was an eclectus parrot, but the book also says it’s only found in the far north, so, unless it had escaped from some collection, it must have been a Rosella of some sort. It’s a pity I didn’t manage to get a photo.

Tom had seen a book about the Melbourne trams at Eureka and didn’t buy it then, and although he looked in a couple of other shops, we couldn’t find it. We did find a magazine shop, Magnation, with what they claimed was the largest collection of magazines in the city. They certainly had lots, but Tom found that the English ones they had were a couple of months out of date and twice the price of UK. They did not have any Australian x-stitching magazines, which I found rather strange, but they had a few quilting and patchwork ones, which I was able to resist. I couldn’t find any stitching shops in the city apart from Lincraft, but they have more in the way of wool and dressmaking fabrics and paper goods than x-stitch charts or books. I’m going on line later to see if I can dig up any. Thanks Mags and Lorna for your help with this – we didn’t get to the Brisbane ones, and haven’t reached the WA area yet. The shops I’ve found so far have been in most unlikely small towns where craft obviously flourishes when there’s not a lot else to do!

We got back here at about 6.00pm carrying our dinner for tonight, which you’ll be pleased to hear is a nice healthy salad and some chicken and beef – a nice change after our fish and chips of last night and Chinese the night before. I shall look forward to cooking properly when we get home – I never thought I’d be bothered, but I am missing home cooked meals. We’ve got the heating on as it’s definitely autumnal now and will enjoy another evening of TV before more adventuring tomorrow. Bye for now.