December 27 - December 30

Perth to Melbourne

Virgin Blue 292
Departs Friday, Dec. 27 - 1:50 PM
Arrives Friday, Dec 27 - 7:20 PM

Things to see and do:

Melbourne Background
Great Ocean Road

This is going to be a fairly short update, since we're only spending two days in Melbourne before heading off for the first Sydney leg.

Saturday, December 27

Saturday is mostly a travel day for us as we're flying from Perth (West Coast) to Melbourne (South East Coast). While getting packed up, we saw on the news that a man was killed by a shark just south of the beach we went to on Christmas Day! We had seen the choppers scanning for Sharks while at the beach - we just didn't realize there were ever many there.

We have another packed flight with lots of folks buying overpriced food, but we make it to Melbourne on time (7PM) with no issues.

We've not gotten a rental car as Melbourne has an extensive public transportation system and it's quite easy to get around. Despite the public transportation, we take the easy option of a cab to the hotel and get checked in. Our hotel is in the Central Business District and appears to be in a pretty quiet section of the city. We fear finding a place to eat may be a problem. Luckily, the Desk Clerk tells us to walk just two blocks and there is a street (actually an alley) with a bunch of restaurant choices.

Somehow, Travis' camera's xD card got corrupted while at the Perth Airport (Travis is blaming Doug's MacBook which last interfaced with the card to get some pictures off of it - Doug clearly denies that his precious MacBook would create any kind of problem whatsoever), so we set off to determine where Target was (what? ANOTHER Target??) so we could replace it in the morning.

While wandering the city, Travis stumbled on a coin purse that someone dropped (actually a piece of art??) and we came across a Christmas window display at one of the local department stores. The display was animated and quite intricate and went on for window after window. It apparently is a yearly tradition with a different theme each year and draws big crowds (they had ropes to help direct traffic).

Once Target was located, we headed back to the hotel and got some sleep - vacation sure is tiring!

Sunday, December 28

We sleep in a bit (it is vacation after all) before heading to Target and sight-seeing. It's clear that Christmas is a bigger deal here than the other places we've visited - just based on all the decorations all over the city.

One of the recommendations for Melbourne is the Queen Victoria Market which is a huge open market. We decide to take the free City Circle Tram to get there. This ends up taking a bit longer than we had planned and Travis almost got run over getting off they tram (the trams run down the middle of the street and at this intersection there wasn't really a platform - just cars flying by). With disaster averted, we find the market, which is BIG and seems to sell everything. Travis bought a boomerang (it's not clear they let you leave the country without one). It was pretty cheap.

From here, we planned to go to the Immigration Museum. This time we decide to take Melbourne's free city tourism bus. According to the map, it goes directly from the Market right to the Museum. We wait a bit for it and it arrives and is packed. We squeeze on (literally) and we're on our way. Unfortunately, Melbourne just had a huge ferris wheel open (like the London Eye) and the route has changed in the last week. We drive all over the city before we make it to the Immigration Museum. We're starting to think that you get what you pay for when you use "Free" transportation.

The Immigration Museum is pretty interesting. Australia has a population of about 21 million. There have been long periods where the government has encouraged/sponsered immigration to try to grow the population. In the 1990s, 1 out of every 4 Australian residents was born outside of Australia! The Port of Melbourne has long been a primary entry point (theoretically like Ellis Island). The museum did a nice job of describing the reasons people have immigrated as well as the struggles the country has faced with immigration (racism, job worries, etc.). All-in-all, a good museum. One piece of trivia for you - the term tariff is derived from the ransom demanded by pirates of Cape Tariffe.

We had plans to eat dinner with friends of Doug's that he worked with in Malaysia. They've since immigrated to Melbourne so this is the first time he'd seen them in 18 months or so. They suggested a Chinese restaurant in South Yarra - we got to pay for the train to get there!!

Doug had warned Travis that this probably wouldn't be like his favorite Pei Wei or PF Chang's Asian cuisine in Houston. We weren't disappointed! We had soft shelled crab (excellent), roast duck, calamari, scallops and tofu, Chinese broccoli and jelly fish! Travis enjoyed eating the jelly fish as he got his revenge for stings from the past. The food was good and it was good to catch up with Cecilia, Thomas and their kids Zoey, Zach and Zane! A very pleasant evening.

Monday, December 29

Our plan for Monday was to do a tour of Parliament, visit Captain Cook's cottage and do a brewery tour at Foster's. Unfortunately, the parliament building was closed for the holidays (no mention of that on their website). We headed over to Captain Cook's cottage - or Captain Kirk's cottage as we keep calling it. This is theoretically the childhood home of Captain Cook which was dismantled in 1934 in the UK and shipped to Melbourne and put back together in the Fitzroy Gardens. It's unclear whether Cook ever lived in the house, but his parents definitely did.

The self guided tour is pretty funny. It starts out with a lines "Congratulations you have made it to the world renowned Cook's Cottage. Whether it's been your childhood dream or just a passing curiosity, this is your chance to step back in time ...." Neither of us would admit having a childhood dream to visit the cottage. It was not obvious that other people there were excited enough to have been waiting a lifetime to get there either. One oddity of the cottage is that it had a "doormat" made out of flint stone. This is the same material used by Wedgewood for his pottery.

The Fitzroy Garden's were also very nice and included a conservatory with some pretty impressive flowers (along with about 200 tour bus tourists).

After a pub lunch, we boarded a tram to get to the brewery. It's the largest brewery in the Southern Hemisphere. Travis is forced to change from his sandles to some attractive loaner shoes they have. They also had us wear stylish neon yellow vests. We're a pretty group! It was a pretty complete, typical brewery tour but we did learn that until 1983, workers received a beer for every hour they worked. They would consume these at their 15 minute breaks so by the time they'd ended their shift, they would have drunk 8 beers! As you can imagine, this was leading to some issues with safety, alcoholism, etc. When they stopped the practice in '83, employees were not happy. They now get credits towards beer/wine that they can trade in at bottle shops (liquor stores).

Monday night we had dinner along the South Bank of the Yarra River and then headed to the Eureka Skydeck 88. This is an observation deck on the 88th floor of a skyscraper (the highest observation deck in the Southern Hemisphere). It has a couple of interesting features. The first is that there is a terrace in one corner so that you can go outside and feel the elements (it was windy). The second (and big selling feature) is called "The Edge" and is basically a 9-10ft square glass box. They have you put booties on (the 2nd time Travis has to deal with shoe issues today) and then hustle a group of you into the glass box. Once in there, they close the door and the glass box slides out of the edge of the building. While it's sliding, all of the glass is frosted (LCDs). Once the box has fully extended outside of the building, the LCDs clear and you're left standing in a glass box that's 88 floors above ground. It's quite freaky. Travis seems to deal with it fine. Doug doesn't mind standing in place but doesn't like walking across the glass floor. Of course there is the photo opportunity (we bought one - they wouldn't let us take our own pics - there is a photo of the photo to the left). All in all, it was pretty cool.

Have a happy and safe New Year everyone - we'll be watching fireworks in Sydney Harbor (safely of course).