Days 255 - 266 Melbourne, Victoria

In which Nick takes a holiday from writing the blog and Juli steps in and shows him how it should be done.

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Days 255 - 257 The Mornington Peninsula

I don't think that Nick and I quite appreciated the size of the Port Philip Bay before Dennis came to pick us up from the city.  We knew he lived in Mornington (actually Mount Eliza) but we just thought that was a suburb, but in fact it is about 60 kms from the city centre and the whole area has its own attractions and feel as we were to discover in these few days.

Tuesday morning, the first day in a new home and with people we didn't know really well so what did we do?  Stayed in bed until 11.30.  Rather a cheeky start.  There are all kinds of excuses - it was a rainy morning (yes ... I know ... in Australia)  so the light was dull and I kept thinking that it was still early and went back to sleep - but the truth of it was that we were exhausted from the busy previous few days and we needed the sleep.  After lunch (we had missed breakfast) we decided to have a relaxed day catching up with blog and emails, and wandering around Dennis and Carolyn's lovely house looking at all the things brought back from various trips.  Dennis is a traveller and he has the most amazing photos of the people he has seen in the places he has been to, which are displayed around the house.  Then he showed us the pictures of the wildlife that he had seen on a recent trip to South Africa with his kids.  Fantastic.  I was super jealous, both of the trip and the shots. He has already won an award with Australian Geographic for a picture in the past and any of the ones he showed us could have entered a competition and won.

Later in the afternoon he offered to take me out for a drive around the local area while Nick finished off the blog, so we went along the coast to see where they had lived, his work place and some of the lovely cliff and beach views.  While we were up on the cliff top we looked into the clear water and I spotted a manta ray just slowly making its way through the water.  Brilliant.

When we arrived back home Nick and Carloyn had already started on the beers so we joined them and chatted away about our travels. Dennis cooked supper - beef and chicken satay - and we downed a few more beers and chatted to the children about school, surfing, making films and having cool holidays.  It was really nice to be in a family environment again after the tours.  We went to bed promising to be up in good time because Dennis had taken leave so that he could show us around.

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The next morning after breakfast this time, we left home following the same route we had taken the afternoon before so Nick was able to see some of the same places, but we carried on along the coast.  Our first stop was Arthur's Seat, named by acting lieutenant John Murray of The Lady Nelson in 1802 because it reminded him of the Arthur's Seat outside Edinburgh.  We spent some time looking at the views and listening to the awful noise that sulphur crested cockatoos make.  For a pretty bird they are very raucous.  We left and drove down the hill again through Rosebud to Sorento, where we took a short walk along the cliff looking at the lovely houses and their jetties.  It was on this walk that we saw the first of the snakes which  have already been written about in the previous post.  We went back into the town for lunch in one of the little cafes.  We have found that Australia has a very strong food culture developing and in nearly every little town or hamlet there will be a nice cafe or tea shop or deli or somewhere to get interesting sandwiches.

 

After lunch we continued on to the end of the arm of the bay, where we parked at Point Nepean National Park.  Dennis took us on a walk to the very end of the peninsula where there are two forts.  It is only recently that the land has come out of naval control. The point is a perfect place from where to defend the bay and has had forts on it since the 1800s.  These were well defended during the first and second world wars and amazingly the first shots fired in both wars was from this point. They are no longer used but you can walk round and imagine their pasts.

It was also amazing to watch the difference in the sea: on one side the quiet waters of the bay, protected by the arms of the peninsula with only quite a small entry into the bay for all the ships that come up to Port Melbourne (which will include our cruise on Grand Prix day) while on the other side is the ocean, whipped up by some pretty strong winds.  For us the weather was perfect for walking, not too hot and with a cool breeze and it certainly made the sky and sea look dramatic.

Having seen our second snake of the day we decided that we probably ought to get back to the car before I attracted any more attention and we made our way back a short way to the Immigration station where all the boats headed for Melbourne had to put in with their human cargos for everyone to be fumigated and held in quarantine, a bit like Ellis Island. Some families spent months here and some never left.

At home again we wanted to look at the snake pictures and were both pleased and horrified when Tanzin confirmed that she thought the first one had been a tiger snake.

For supper we were taken out to Springvale, an area further North which has a large Vietnamese population for a Vietnamese meal.  We had a wonderful mix of dishes and it was lovely to be eating with chopsticks again.  I think you eat much more slowly and in a more considered way (mainly because you are concentrating on not dropping it in your lap).  At home we sank happily into our beds after a busy and interesting day with the same promise to get up in good time again.

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On the following day the weather was looking a bit more rainy and the skies were definitely darker.  It seemed we had brought English weather to Melbourne but everyone was pleased, especially for the gardens which had just been through 15 days with temperatures over 30 degrees, officially a heatwave.  This is what Sky news had to say about it:

Melbourne's record heatwave has come to a soggy conclusion, with more rain and thunderstorms on the horizon. Melbourne woke to heavy rain and storms on Tuesday, with up to 45mm recorded in parts of the city. There were train and tram delays and cancellations across Melbourne during the morning peak, but the weather was mostly a welcome relief after a prolonged heatwave.

The temperature has reached 30 degrees on 15 days this February, equalling a record set in 1997.

The rain is set to continue, with heavy rain, hail and thunderstorms predicted for Melbourne and eastern Victoria on Wednesday.

A severe weather warning remains in place for the state's northern country, north central, north east, central and West and South Gippsland forecast districts.

Police urged drivers to slow down and be wary of wet conditions.

'Don't rush, take your time, plan your trip and drive safely,' Superintendent Neville Taylor said.

'We know that we start to have a run of crashes like that when the weather changes.'

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Philip Landvogt said only light rain had fallen on a massive bushfire burning out of control in the Grampians, in western Victoria.

So packing a picnic lunch along with a second layer and waterproofs we set off to our first port of call in the Dandenong Range of mountains a bit further to the North.  We were heading to the William Ricketts Sanctuary which is now run by the National Parks.  It is the home of the late William Ricketts who was a sculptor and artist during the last century.  He had lived for some time with the Aboriginal people and then spent time in India and he created works trying to reflect his vision of a peaceful nation at one with the earth. We had seen this place in one of the Billy Connelly documentaries on Australia so went to have a look.

The work is all around in a 'garden' setting but with huge Australian gum trees and tree ferns which, after the rain, were very atmospheric.  It was certainly an interesting place but I found his work a bit odd and rather sentimental, with aborigine children portrayed with cherubic faces and wings rather like the angels you would see in Victorian graveyards and a mix of Christian, Hindu and Aboriginal religious imagery.

Before this stop we had dropped in to a viewpoint where Dennis was horrified that we had to pay five dollars to get in and then we couldn't see the view because of the cloud.

We ate our picnic in the National Rhododendron Garden and then wandered around Olinda, a pretty little village once again with nice cafes and interesting shops.  Then it was time for the off, a great long drive all the way down to the bottom of the peninsula to Philip Island so that we could see the Penguin Parade. We crossed the bridge to the island and made our fist stop at Cowes.  There are lots of place names from the Isle of Wight on the island.  Then we went on to The Nobbies, rocks where seals live and the cliffs where the little penguins (that's their name but they are also known as fairy penguins) have their tunnels.  There was a lovely boardwalk to follow which took you round the cliffs past Nobbies Blowhole, a dramatic cave in the cliff which filled with water as each wave came in and blew out what looked like steam, as well as hundreds of little holes for the penguins some of which had chicks in them.

When we returned to the car Dennis had seen a route that followed the edge of the cliff which we decided to follow.  It turned out to be the closest thing to a game drive we have done in Australia with loads of wallabies every where. It was here that we saw our amazing event for the day.  Nick spotted a wallaby pick up the dead body of a penguin and start to eat it.  This was almost unbelievable.  Wallabies are not meat eaters and yet here we were looking at one chewing on the body,dropping it, then picking it up to chew on again!  You can imagine how this added to our sense of the weirdness of Australian wildlife - here were killer wallabies.  Much amused we continued on to the Penguins Parade centre where we paid to go in to seats at the edge of the sea to watch the nightly spectacle of hundreds of little penguins coming out of the sea to return to their burrows.

As it got darker the ranger spoke about what we were about to see and on cue, almost exactly at the moment that he stopped talking, Dennis spotted a group of penguins emerging from the waves.  We watched as they crossed the beach in a gang (or a raft  as we were told) - safety in numbers, trying not to be picked off by a bird of prey or any other predator.  Over the hour or so that we watched hundreds of penguins came in safely.  As we walked back to the centre along the boardwalk we could follow little groups and watch as mothers fed their chicks really close to where we were.  It was a lovely spectacle.

We were driven home happy and amazed, with a plan to send the rangers copies of the pictures of the wallaby - they didn't believe us at first, just some silly tourists who didn't know anything so it will be interesting to see how they respond to the pictures.

It had been another brilliant day and Dennis must have been exhausted after all the driving he did.  We had tea, said good night and goodbye to Carolyn, left a note for the children, who were already in bed, and went to bed ourselves, knowing we would be leaving in the morning.   But we certainly left knowing a great deal more about the Mornington Peninsula than we had when we arrived just a couple of days before, and feeling that we were leaving friends who had made us feel more than welcome in their home.

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Days 258 - 266  (Melbourne, Wilson's Promontory, Puffing Billy and the Yarra Valley)

We packed all our things together and Dennis had offered to drive us to Carole's house, which was very kind, especially as it was such a distance to go.  Carole lives in the Northern Melbourne suburbs so we had a  long drive up and through the city centre to get to Strathmore, a pretty suburb on the metro line.  When we arrived Carole was still in the process of tidying up as her previous visitor had only left that morning and now here we were.  No rest for the wicked, as they  say.  We put our bags down and had lunch, catching up and chatting.  I haven't seen Carole since I was a young teenager although mum and dad have stayed here before.  She is a very old friend of my uncle and they taught together at a school when he first came to Australia. We were also introduced to the three dogs in the house:  Sparky (right), Psyche (left) - both Carole's dogs - and Teddy (centre) her niece's.  It's always nice to be somewhere with dogs.

  

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On Saturday morning Carole left super early to catch a flight to the Gold Coast so that she could go to my cousin's wedding (the Australian wedding - if you have been following - he had the Korean one in January).  We found out later that everything had gone extremely well except that it had rained.  More what you might expect for an English wedding rather than an Australian one, but Queensland has been having a great deal of rain recently and we had already had an email from my aunt telling us they were all in 'Waterworld'.  When we saw Carole's pictures everyone looked beautiful and very happy.  There will have been lots of painful 'smiling cheeks' that evening.

While this was all happening in another part of the country,  Nick and I had arranged to meet up with Corinne and Adam, our friends who had emigrated to Australia and who had made the overland trip with us.  The last time we had seen them in December, they had been really worried as to whether they would get jobs and somewhere to live.  This time you could see by their relaxed faces and big smiles when we met them under the clock at Flinders Station that there were no concerns any more.

We went first of all to have a coffee and to catch up.  This extended into a second coffee and more catching up.  We finally remembered that we were supposed to be having lunch and wandered off through the city, eventually stopping at The Oriental Teashop for a lovely vegetarian selection of dishes, and lots more catching up.  After all that we wandered off again only to stop at a lovely tea shop in one of the Arcades to drink tea and eat cake and to catch up anything we had previously left out.  We ended what was now the afternoon by a quick trip into the Information Centre, as much for them as for us, and said goodbye in Federation Square.  It had been a really brilliant day and we were so pleased to see that everything was going well for them both. They have very good jobs and a lovely flat.  Their furniture and belongings are being sent out from the UK and family and friends are already making plans to visit them.  It is going to be the new life they had dreamed of.

And we will be seeing them again when our cruise comes into Melbourne in a couple of weeks time.  Nick and Adam are going to be going to the Grand Prix and Corinne and I are going to eat the equivalent of the entry cost in cake!

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It was a very early start the following day, Sunday.  We were off on another tour and this one was supposed to leave at 7.15am from the centre of the city.  Too early for the train on a Sunday so Carole, very kindly, after her very busy day the day before, drove us in to our meeting point. After a bit of hanging around, the bus finally left on a long drive to Wilson's Promontory, the furthest South you can go in Victoria and in mainland Australia.  It took about three hours before we drove into the area all of which is National Park.  We have been very impressed with all of the National Parks that we have been to here.  They are all very well maintained and  have impressive boardwalks or pathways and tracks.  Most of them have really interesting and well laid out visitor centres, as well as leaflets about what you can see and do, and this one was no exception.

A couple of years ago the park was devastated by flooding.  As we drove through you could see the scars on the hillsides where huge granite boulders and trees had been washed down causing massive destruction.  Many of the paths had been washed away and the campsite was destroyed. So it was interesting that the path we were to walk up had only recently reopened after renovations.  It was the 3.4km track up Mount Oberon.  It was a great path and the views at the top were stunning, looking down over two beautiful beaches with islands in the distance looking as if they were floating in the sky.  Each of us were pleased that we had made the effort to get to the top, but Nick had struggled on  the walk up and I had paniced at the last section which was steps up an exposed granite slope with huge drops down.  Our walk down was much more pleasant and we discussed meals we had known and loved, as it was time for some lunch!

 

[We concluded that our all time favourite was the meal we had on board the Celebrity Solstice for our anniversary in Murano, the modern French style restaurant.  Food, service, ambience, everything was just perfect that evening.]

So we were pleased that the next stop was for our lunch. We had bought a picnic which we ate at a viewpoint near Tidal River (one day I will muse about Australian place names and saying it like it is...).  Nice lunch but the best bit was when suddenly a big wombat (normally nocturnal) came running through where we were sitting. It looked up, realised that there were people all over the place and ran off.  My photo just shows its bum disappearing but Nick got an ok shot, given the speed of the event.

After lunch, the group were taking another walk to get to Squeaky Beach, but we opted to take the bus and spend more time actually on the beach itself. Also I have to admit that I was concerned about meeting another snake.  I think nine is enough for three months.  Carole, who is a similar age to my mum, has only seen five or six in her whole life! As it turned out I made the right choice.  When we met up with the others, they were telling tales of having come face to face with another Tiger snake.

We had a visit to the Visitor centre then went on to the beach.  It is called Squeaky Beach because of the high silica content of the sand which not only makes it white but, squeaks when you rub your feet through it.  It was a lovely location and we spent a happy hour taking pictues and paddling, as we had not bought our togs.  We will never be Australians - going to a beach with no swimmers !!

Our journey home was long and we were pleased to get to the city.  We had a quick snack in Hungry Jacks and then caught the train back to Carole's.  I was very pleased to crawl into bed that night and even more pleased that we had declared the following day to be a 'Wipeout' day, giving me a chance to just sleep in to recover a bit of energy.

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After a bit of a lie in we did all those jobs that have to be done but that you sort of don't factor in: washing, emailing, blogging, uploading pictures, shaving legs, plucking eyebrows, repacking bags, sorting through paperwork, more washing and so on and so on.  You need to just have days like this every now and again because the pace is too hectic otherwise.

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And of course the following morning we were up very early again to take the train into the city so that we could do the next of the tours we had previously arranged. Today we were taking a Graylines tour to the Dandenong mountains and the Yarra Valley, just outside the city.  When we got there, a little early,we discovered that they had already allowed for latecomers in their timings.  They had told us to be there 15 minutes before we needed to be so we had time to drop into a cafe in the Atrium, part of the interesting buildings of Federation Square, for breakfast.



Breakfast is a very important meal in Australia and you see lots of places that are open early for breakfast but might be closed for tea in the afternoon. We went to one place recently who told us that they were still serving breakfast until 3pm if that was what we fancied.

On returning to the meeting point we still had to wait as the various day trips went off, but soon we were on the way out of the city on the freeway towards the Dandenong Range.  We had already seen these pretty mountains when we went out with Dennis to the William Ricketts Sanctuary.  We were equally happy to be there again, especially in the sunshine. After a stop to drink Billy tea (made in a billy can with water from a Billabong - or rather with hot water from under the coach!) we drove on to Belgrave Station to join Puffy Billy, a narrow gauge steam train that has been preserved by a team of over 600 volunteers and now taking hordes of tourists up and down the mountain.  We had a pleasant ride up to the next station, which took about half an hour, listening to the puffing as the train struggled up the steep gradient.



The trip we had booked spent the afternoon visiting vineyards in the Yarra Valley but other people on the coach were doing other tours, so some people left to do the Penguin tour (off to see killer wallabies) and others to do a wildlife tour. When all of this had been sorted it was time to drive to our lunch spot and first vineyard, Fergussons.  We had a huge lunch with a glass of wine, and then tried some of their other offerings at the cellar door.  We weren't tempted here to buy so we went for a walk in the grounds. 

The hillside ahead of us was burnt following a fire the weekend before. It had destroyed crops but fortunately no houses or people.  But it was a further reminder of what people have to put up with in this country.  A few years ago the vineyard had lost a storeage building and we had been talking on our last tour about the Black Saturday fires which killed over 100 people and destroyed hundreds of homes. The constant fear of bush fires is something that people live with all the time.  In the Grampians, on the Ocean Road trip, we actually saw the fires burning.  When we first arrived in December, fires were destroying Tasmania.  It is one of the reasons that no matter how much we liked the little villages and quirky houses of the Dandenongs, that we will not be living here.  I can't imagine living with that anxiety every year.  One woman we  spoke to said: 'That's Australia,' and someone else commented that a sense of complacency might have been responsible for people not leaving their homes when they were threatened by fire. Whatever it is, it added to my sense of what a hard land this is to live in and how thin a veneer of  'civilisation' there is between humans  and the 'wild'.

Fortunately we didn't have to ponder that for too long before we could have another set of tastings.  The second vineyard was Rochford, where a very informative woman took us through their wines. We did enjoy several of those but decided to wait to see if the third place had anything even better to offer and we weren't disappointed.

Dominique Portet was a French winemaker, from several generations of  winemakers, who came to  Australia in the 60s and stayed on.  His son is now the main winemaker at the cellar which has his father's name, and is the tenth generation of the family to make wine. As it was towards the end of the day we had a short tasting session but enjoyed the sauvignon blanc so much that we bought a bottle to take home for the evening.  It had been another lovely day trying Australian wines and again we were struck by the fact that so many of the wines we had tried in various locations were unavailable in the UK.

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Wednesday morning was another opportunity to have breakfast out.  My cousin, Sam, had a meeting in Melbourne which didn't start until late so it meant that we could meet her at the beginning of the day to catch up on all the news from the eastern cousins. We took the train with Carole. It was the rush hour, which is just as busy as any other city rush hour, and were very pleased that we were going off to have breakfast, not sit in an office all day.  We met Sam at Melbourne Central station which allowed us to go 'Wow' twice before breakfast.  Firstly, the railway lines are below a shopping centre and when you come up the escalators you emerge into a glass domed space suprrounded by shops. But the amazing thing is that the dome covers the old (and listed historic building) shot tower, which has been incorporated into the design of the centre.



Secondly, there is a clock which performs a very kitsch version of 'Walzing Matilida' on the hour which we were there to witness. The whole bottom of the clock slides down and birds whistle and two small pixies play the tune.  Hilarious to watch, especially as hundreds of comuters rushed past without a second glance!

Sam had lived in Melbourne and knew just where to take us in one of the lanes and we had a lovely breakfast with lots of chatting and catching up. She had photos of the Australian wedding which we were very pleased to see and more pictures of the puppy, Django, which they got after Christmas, as if they didn't have enough to cope with!  It was very sad when the time came to say goodbye, knowing that it will be a while before we see each other again.

Nick and I had decided that we would spend the rest of the day sightseeing in the city, as we hadn't really done any of that yet, so our first stop was to visit the dome of the State Library of Victoria, which is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. It was a lovely place and the reading room had a calm and cool atmosphere. On the balconies there are exhibitions of oldbooks, the story of Victoria (the state not the queen) and an exhibition about Ned Kelly.  It was interesting to look at all of these, especially taking advantage of the air conditioning.

  

Air conditioning was to become something to be sought on these days in the city. Strange as it was for me to realise, we were in Melbourne in the Autumn - March, April, May.  This seemed more difficult for me to 'get my head around'  than Christmas in the sun.  It just didn't compute.  Especially as the temperatures have been in the 30s all week.  The newspapers were full of the 'record temps' and how unusual it was at this time of year.  For us it was still pretty hot and made wandering around quite diffcult, without dashing in to somewhere air conditioned every now and again.

We took the free tram to see the whole of the city and got off when the driver disappeared saying there would be a five minute break - I think he needed a wee - to walk to the Royal Exhibition building, the first building in Australia to be given World heritage status.  Here, for the first time we saw signs of Autumn.  The trees are elms and not indigineous so were dropping their leaves.  Around the building the gardens used to be planted like English pleasure grounds but now the state government realises that to conserve water native species need to be planted.

Inside the building a Graduate Career Fair was taking place but we wandered in and looked at the beautifully painted walls and ceiling, possibly the only people in the building who were looking up.

To finish the day, we walked back through the city to Federation Square to have a look at the much more recent buildings. Originally the area had been part of the railyards of Flinders Street Station but the city wanted to make use of the space so new galleries and museums have been built in a very interesting style and now the area is vibrant and full of people.

It was too hot to do any more so we took the train home again and spent the evening trying to cool down.

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Our last set of tour tickets before we return to Sydney were for entry into the Melbourne Aquarium. We had a leisurely breakfast at Carole's and took the train to Flinder's Street from where we walked along the Yarra river to get to the aquarium. It was already hot and the idea of spending time in the airconditioned building was enticing. It turned out to be even better than we expected. The very first exhibit was full of penguins from Antartica, complete with snow. We stood next to that for quite a long while, showing extraordinary interest in king penguins.

We had been told that the Melbourne aquarium was a good one to go to and it was certinly true. We saw things here that we had never seen before, including weedy and leafy sea dragons which are amazing creatures somewhat like sea horses but camoflagued to look like sea weed. They are to be found in the waters of Port Philip Bay and Dennis had seen them when snorkelling with his son.

 



At the other end of the size range, the huge tanks with rays and sharks were equally spectacular, but it was the huge potato cod, called Spud, which outdid all the others. You wouldn't want to bump into that while out snorkelling in the bay.

At last it was time to venture out into the sunshine again. The temps had now risen to around 35 degrees so we continued our walk along the river side and found a shopping centre to have lunch in the food hall. When things get too hot for us you will have noticed that we often slip into the cool of a mall. Lunch was much more satisfying than the wander around the shops so we decided that it was once again time to take the train.

At Carole's house, her house guest, a Colombian girl called Katalina, had offered to cook supper for us. She and Carole sweated buckets over a hot cooker in a hot kitchen to give us a wonderful South American meal of arepa with tomato and chorizo (a corn bread pancake with hot topping) and cheese empanadas which we washed down with a sparkling wine from one of the Barossa Valley vineyards that we had visited.  Carole had also been there with her previous visitor.  Lucky for us!

We all spent the rest of the evening trying to stay cool. Everyone was reading and not moving around very much and several showers were taken before bed and we had a much more pleasant night than the one before.

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Friday dawned a little cloudy and for a while we were excited by the possibility of rain, but that soon faded along with the clouds and it turned into another hot day.  A good one for getting the blog up to date and having your hair cut.  Both of which we did.  We now feel smart enough to be joining a cruise shortly.

 

For supper we took Carole out to thank her for her hospitality and had a wonderful meal in a Thai/Lao restaurant in a suburb called Moonee Ponds.  You shudder to think what might go on there!

***

Our last day in Melbourne dawned just as hot as the others had been.  We had had a very sticky night and were glad to hop into the shower but it didn't take long before we were just a sweaty as before.  Nick did a spot more washing and hung it up, where it was dry in no time and we had breakfast before leaving to take the train one more time.  We had decided to visit the Victoria Markets to the North of the CBD as we had been told that they were worth seeing.  They are certainly big markets, and the food section with specialities from all of the different people that make up Melbourne were super, but really we have seen lots of big markets while we have been travelling and this one was selling much the same stuff as we had seen in China, Sout East Asia and Malaysia, only it was more expensive.  We counted ourselves lucky to have been able  to see the stuff in all of those other places.  If we lived in Melbourne we would certainly do our fruit and veg shopping there and try out all of the interesting items in the 'foodie' hall.

In the afternoon we decided that we wanted to be somewhere with air conditioning and so set off down William Street to the Immigration Museum.  After a hot walk we sat down in their cool foyer with a cup of tea and some cake to watch a lovely documentary about sweets and how they feature in the lifestyles of all of the different groups in Melbourne.  It added to the food nature of the days so far.

When we summoned the energy to look around the main body of the museum we were impressed by the exhibitions about immigrants coming to Australia, how they got there at different times through history, why they came and where they came from.  I especially liked the recreations of different cabins on ships that would have been used starting with the early sailing ships, moving onto steamers at the start of the 1900s and then the 'cruise' ships that brought the 'Ten Pound Poms'.  There were also sections on immigrants from Vietnam and Afganistan fleeing political unrest, on the Italian and Greek immigrants, other Europeans, Chinese, Lebanese, Africans - all showing what a multi cultural mix is in the city of Melbourne, the state of Victoria and actually across the whole of Australia.

We returned home for a meal with Carole before she went off to the theatre.  We did a bit of organisation with our bags, ready for the long bus journey to Sydney the next day then tried to stay cool again.

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Tomorrow we will be heading off to Sydney on our one and only Greyhound bus journey for our last few days in Australia.  Only four more to go before joining the cruise and starting the final section of our journey.

J.