MELBOURNE

G'day folks. Another instalment. Just a short one, a few days in Melbourne. We left the tropical heat and humidity of Queensland and flew down south to catch the end of their summer. Summer??? We don't know where its at but its not Melbourne. The average temperature is just below 20 degrees and windy with it. We have not been swimming in the sea here yet. Chris and Jane picked us up from the airport on the 20th and drove us into Melbourne where we stayed at Judys house for 4 nights. Richmond is an excellent location and is only a short walk to Victoria Street which has easy access to the city via tram. We are foreign public transport whizzes and have mastered the tram lines in next to no time. Victoria Street is lined with many Vietnamese, Cantonese and Thai restaurants. We twice visited the Thai Thamai restaurant, its so good. Melbourne is a great city. Downtown is a vast area of hustle and bustle and there is a satisfying busy buzz about the place. There are trams connecting you to all suburbs and even a free city tram which circles the city for you to hop on and off as you please and even has a tour guide commentary pointing out the places of interest. Hopping off our tram from Victoria Street we walked down Elizabeth Street through the main centre and out into Federation Square and opposite Flinders Street Station. Federation Square is an ultra modern gathering place and seems to be the base for events and entertainment in the city. It was from here we accessed Melbourne's Food and Wine festival sprawled on the banks of the Yarra River providing a vast array of food from all corners of Australia. Live music was provided and projected onto a permanent flat screen TV fixed onto a side of one of the buildings. Opposite Federation Square is Flinders Street Station, a huge golden coloured building. According to our local source! The plans for Flinders Street Station and the train station in Bombay were apparantly mixed up so their station has columns and is quite imperial looking and Flinders Street is quite...something else. Another interesting fact for you is that the banknotes here are coated in plastic and cannot be ripped. They can also be washed and when you take them out of the machine they are still in one peice. (we have been laundering money!) haha. Another interesting fact that Danny has found out is that you CANNOT substitute a tobacco addiction for fizzy worm sweets and red wine. Danny has been a NON smoker for 2weeks!!! Back to downtown Melbourne we wandered along Southbank (next to the river) and stopped for a pot of Stella for me and a pint for Danny. Pots and pints down here, no schooners. The lift climbed up to the 88th floor of the Eureka Tower and deposited us out onto the viewing platform of the highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere. Eureka Tower is also the world's tallest residential building, 3oo metres in height. From here we gained a prospective of the city and its surroundings through the floor to ceiling windows. This is also the only building that boasts The Edge Experience, a glass cube which projects 3 metres out of the building, 300 metres up - with you in it! We didn't experience this as it was an extra cost plus they make you wear foolish looking blue bags on your feet and after our experiences wearing the blue lycra suits for snorkelling we still felt we were recovering from that. (they wear blue bags over their feet to prevent marking the glass floor). However we have experienced the Victoria Market which is the biggest market we have visited selling huge assortments of fish, meat, vegetables and the yummiest pastries. There have been reccomendations to visit Melbourne's South Markets and we hope to when we return to Melbourne. Walking back up Elizebeth Street stopping off in Hostels and internet Cafes we are searching for advertisements to buy ourselves a van. We are now heading down to Blairgowrie which is in the Mornington Peninsula to stay with Chris and Jane, but will head back to Melbourne to continue the search next week.