Melbourne

Crikey, we’re in Australia!

Now we have to learn new colloquialisms, but I’m still calling flip flops jandals. 

It’s quite a change to be in a massive city and Melbourne is huge. Instead of staying in the CBD (central biz district) we’re in St. Kilda, a funky, beachside neighbourhood. I don’t want overwhelm our country selves with skyscrapers. Our Airbnb is a short walk to the main drag.

As we did in NZ we like to kick off our stays with a visit to an amusement park. I hope the kids don’t think this is going to become a thing. Luna Park, modeled after Coney Island, has been open since 1912 and is bit of an iconic landmark in Melbourne. We spent the morning here and then headed downtown in the afternoon. The ol’ timey tram gave us a quick overview of the sites. We got out at the Melbourne Museum and then enjoyed some Greek food at Stalactite. Interesting facts:

• Melbourne has the largest population of Greeks and Italians outside of their respective countries.
• It’s a very diverse city and almost half the residents were born overseas.
• It’s original name was Batmania

    

  

   

     

    

 

Sunday was the St Kilda Festival so our ‘hood was hoppin’. The streets were closed to cars and there were food trucks, bands, rides and lots of people. It was a gorgeous day so we had lunch on the beach and strolled the fest before heading downtown to the National Gallery of Victoria and the Royal Botanical Gardens. The gallery had a fun exhibit on Julian Opie that included a kids’ studio where they created digital portraits. Luke’s is very interesting. ? Fortuitously there was also a William Wegman exhibit.  For 3 kids missing their dog they enjoy anything related to canines.

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Our last full day in Melbourne we drove outside the city to the Yarra Valley for a visit to the Healesville Sanctuary. I booked a wildlife encounter to hang with koalas and kangaroos but sadly Tony and Emily Koala were both unwell and could not participate. They replaced the koala experience with a python one, which is pretty much the same thing. Both are very snuggly.

The kangaroos we fed are from Kangaroo Island where there are no predators so they’re very trusting and friendly. In fact there are no enclosures in the zoo for most of the animals. Thankfully the cassowary lives in a fenced area. It’s the most dangerous bird to humans and has been known to disembowel. Ouch.

  

After the zoo we headed to a local chocolaterie even though this is wine country. Not sure how we ended up here. Hoodwinked by those meddling kids.

After a dinner at home we took a sunset walk to the St Kilda pier to see if we could scope out some penguins. We saw a couple of molting ones and could her little chicks in the rocks waiting for their parents to return with food.

 

   

  

        

we’re set to head out of town tomorrow. In an exciting twist we totally changed our plans and instead of flying to Tasmania we are flying to Bargara, Queensland…oooooo it’s exciting.