Melbourne started off as Meh-lbourne. The CBD (Central Business District) was a hodgepodge of conflicting architectural styles, fighting with each other for visual and artistic prominence. Public transport is excellent with an efficient use of electric trams (or street cars, in the vernacular of my youth), buses, and trains. Clean, efficient, and swipe card accessibility showcased modern urban transportation. Within the central core of the city, public access is free.
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| Melbourne at Night |
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| Melbourne by Day |
The city is struggling with growth, the same way that a teenager bursts out of his clothes every 3 months or so. Three hundred additional people a day is creating a plethora of high rise apartments and condos, choking off the skyline. There are numerous attractive edifices dating back to the good old days of colonization but I fear that their days may be numbered.
Day 2 took us through the Culture Museum, highlighting the history and plight of the aboriginals. Same story, different continent. Improvement is underway but the challenges faced by these proud peoples mirrors the problems and challenges faced by our own native populous in Canada.
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| Boat Sails |
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| Former Client |
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| Barramundi inlay; Samoa? New Guinea? Local |
Dumplings are the flavour of the month in Melbourne. Literally. Pork dumplings and chilli spiced prawns were lunch. Not a Chabadnick in site. Washed down with a bottle of Singapore’s notorious Tiger Beer, the meal was a traveler’s delight.
With bathing suits on under our shorts, we hopped (speaking of which it took us over a month to spot our first kangaroo; more on that later) on the tram and headed across town to the sands of St. Kilda for a tan booster.
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| African PushmePullyou |
The amount of ink on display rivals the contents of the Library of Congress. It does give an excuse to yours truly when accused of ogling; I reply that “I’m just trying to read the fine print”. Lame, but better than getting the stuffing beaten out of me by her muscle bound BF who probably doesn’t even understand the word ‘reading’, let alone know how to. Not jealous. Not very jealous. Somewhat jealous.
The other highlight of St. Kilda is the nightly return of the local penguin troop. After a day of stuffing their gullets in the sea they return to roost on the rocks of the pier. Penguins mate forever with the same partner. When they state (I am fluent in Penguinese) that their relationship is on the rocks it has an entirely different connotation.
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| Waiting for Sydney and Evgeni |
Several hundred penguin spotters, us amongst, settled in to a viewing spot on the pier before dusk waiting for them to appier. Two hours of whatever time remains in my life were spent and ultimately rewarded with a brief encounter with one little penguin, about 30 cm tall who swam to the shore, waddled under the viewing path, and clambered up the rocks.
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| If you squint, you can make out the penguin standing on the lower rock, in front of the upper. |
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| This is the Hollywood version; not taken by us. |
What I thought was a second penguin approaching turned out to be a long, skinny water rat that shares living spaces with the tuxedoed birds. It did not stop to pose.
OK, so that wasn’t a chronicle of 48 hours. Maybe 20 in total. But the past 2 days have been action packed and I do not want to tax your attention span, dear reader. I’m on a roll so I will divide this epistle (next blog contains the apostle) in two. You can read this now and stop, catching up to the next 28 hours in part two or keep on going. I suggest the latter, in the spirit of what the next instalment will offer up.
Thought Mel was Jason's creative sister. Looks pretty impressive to me. Very jealous. Thanks for posting.
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