Melbourne

September 21, 2019

Hello from Melbourne,

September 20, 2019

We arrived around noon and had the rest of the day to tour around Melbourne taking on a cultural walking tour with Laura. We found ourselves walking to “Art” or graffiti covering walls in some of the narrowest alleys and laneways around Melbourne with some smelling more like a urinal.

Some of the graffiti was actually well-done murals and very artistic. It was easy to see after an hour or so in the alleys that Melbourne took their graffiti problem and turned it into “art”. Looking around there was graffiti everywhere, so rather than trying to have a war with graffiti artists, they appear to have chosen to allow it and now just call it all art.

One other item that caught our eye was an item titled A History Apparatus – Vessel Craft & Beacon. This was a gift from artist Chris Reynolds. Click on the link to see more information about this piece of artwork. Look for that image near the end of the slider.

Cross walks that light up for those that text

Where the Australian postal service started

A History Apparatus – Vessel Craft & Beacon

Today the big adventure was to buy a SIM card for my cell phone. Not wanting to bore readers, I did manage to find an Optus store. The first store was beside Hudson’s coffee shop, a definite worthy alternative to Starbucks. Joan patiently waited there until I completed the transaction. The result was two sim cards with 45 GB data each for 28 days per sim, all for 40 dollars Australian.

The first attraction of the day was a visit to Queen Victoria Market where goods of all types were available. They had a lot of flea market type of merchandise as well as a large assortment of locally grown food. Unlike markets, at home, the prices were very reasonable. This market was many times larger than any at home with the locally grown food being of interest over the other products.

Below are a couple of images of the Melbourne CBD as viewed from the Queen Victoia Market.

Below are a couple of images of the Melbourne CBD as viewed from the Queen Victoia Market.

The volunteers at the Melbourne information booth at the market recommended that we go to Federation square to see the international batman event at the federation square.

We made our way walking around the city ending at Federation square in search of the batman event but only found a group protesting about oil, Iran, etc. and the batman event wasn’t scheduled until 8 p.m.

We discover the tram. Melbourne has a very complex but well-covered tram system that operates throughout the CBD with one loop that travels around the outer perimeter of it making access to attractions, restaurants, graffiti (“Art”) covered alleys and a plethora of other useful destinations (Woolworths, Optus).

We decided to give the tram a try and made our way to the State Library. We still have not found a vendor that sells the Myki card, but we are still in the free zone so make our first ride on the tram.

The library building is a very stately building and represents a time that has long passed. Apparently, the area below the large dome was used for a Harry potter film.

Myki Transit Pass

Off we went. Along the way, we were in search of a place to have lunch and a place to buy our Myki transit passes. This ended up being much more difficult than you can imagine. The CBD of Melbourne has a very Asian presence and finding non-Asian cuisine was a challenge, but we did finally find an Asian restaurant that served toasties (sandwiches). The search for a vendor that sold Myki cards was more challenging.

After a quick tour of the library, we continue our quest for our Myki card. At last, we have success! Felt a little ripped off as we have to pay $6 each for the card and then add money on the card for our future fares.

Before going out for the evening, we noticed from the 27th floor of our hotel a rainbow appears outside of the window, which turned into a twin rainbow plus. Beautiful!

The evening was cool and showery, but we decided to take the tram to St. Kilda Beach to see the fairy penguins. We were told that there were about 15 penguins there and that it could be quite busy and may be difficult to see any, but we decided to give it a try. The penguins don’t come back to shore until after sunset, so we stopped at the Luna restaurant for dinner. This was our first experience with no splitting of bills. We learned that this is common across Australia. We dined with other diners who were all dolled up for an evening at the Palais Theatre across the street. We finished our meal and made our way past the theatre to the St. Kilda pier where the tiny fairy penguins were returning from their own dinner.

We were fortunate that the cool rainy weather meant that there were very few people on the pier, and we were able to get up close and see many penguins. There were definitely more than 15 penguins.

In dim lighting, I took photos of some that turned out well. These penguins are very tiny and quite shy making it difficult to get good photos. Additionally, the low light and not being allowed to use the flash on that camera (concerns about startling and blinding the birds) created a challenge that I will have to work on in the future.