Melbourne Oct. 13

Our last trip into Melbourne.
Weather is still cool, chance of showers. We were lucky, actually had some sunny breaks. It didn't rain, a few showers, until after we got home.
We spent the day at the art gallery.
Beautiful modern building, very light and spacious. The collection of paintings is nice, but not overwhelming. There is sort of one of everything; a Rembrandt, lovely, Monet, Manet, and a lot of other names. The room showing the Impressionists is very nice.
There are some smaller exhibits that realy appealed. In one small room there are a dozen photographs that are very striking.
A large room has a collection of Pacific art, from Polynesia, New Guinea; masks, used in religious ceremonies, shields, paintings. Most are not very old, but very different from anything that we see in Canada.
I'm not sure what the connection is, but there is a collection of glassware and furniture from a Vienna workshop from the early 1900's, before WWI. It is early Art Deco, and I liked it. I guess the Austrian connection.
There is also a room that has a great collection of early printed books and prints. The books were printed before the Reformation, during one of the many wars. Times were grim; there was no escaping the war.
The main theme is very pessimistic, but the representation by the artists is beautiful. There is a great number of prints by Duerer, who is fantastic. We spent almost an hour in that room. It was captivating.
We finished our visit by enjoying a great cup of coffee in the elegant museum cafe.
People in Melbourne are coffee connoisseurs, and there are numerous coffee bars. On the trip back from Adelaide we grabbed a cup at a MacDonalds, and it even that was very good. Coffee is one of the higher priced items, 4 dollars is the usual price, for one cup, no refills.
Before we went home we also visited the Victoria Market. In addition to great food they sell just about anything. Ugg boots with Swarovski crystals. You got it!
There are also various team paraphernalia. I like some of the team names. There are the usual, but there are also the Kangaroos, the Magpies, The Crows, and my favorite, the Swans. I haven't seen any Koalas. I guess an animals that sleeps 18 hours a day does not inspire athletic prowess.
Tomorrow is our last day at our "Australian" home, and will be house cleaning, laundry, car washing day.
Have fun
Ralf

Melbourne Oct. 12

Cloudy, cool, a couple of drops of rain, but not enough to stop us from walking along the Yarra River. Melbourne is situated where the Yarra River flows into Port Philip Bay.
There is a lovely walk along the river. Nice shops, very peaceful. It's hard to believe you are in the center of a modern city of  4 million people. Nothing like the hectic pace of downtown Toronto.
The more I see of Melbourne the more I'm impressed. It is very clean, very visitor friendly, and very appealing. It doesn't have that "canyon" feeling Toronto has. It is much more pedestrian friendly.
Within a 20 minute walk there are large parks, including the Botanical Gardens, which are outstanding. It's like having a couple of High Parks, right in the center of Toronto.
There are also a large number of public art pieces on the streets. Some are quite whimsical. There is one white office building that has two huge golden bumble bees, adorning it.
There is a bridge that has ten large structures showing various stages of Australian history.
Sports is a big thing in Australia. The main ones are cricket and Austalian Rules Football. Rugby isn't far behind. Melbourne also has professional soccer and basketball teams.
There are three large stadiums right downtown. The largest is the cricket stadium that seats over a hundred thousand. It's record is 136 000. Next to it is the Rod Laver Tennis Stadium, that seats almost 15 000. ARF, the most popular sport, is played at the Etihad Stadium. This stadium has a capacity of 54000.
All three are within walking distance of the center.
In addition to that the Immigration Museum, the Ian Potter Gallery, and the Victoria  Art Gallery are all there.
The other amazing thing is that the gardens and museums are all free.
I don't know why, but, this week, seniors travelled free, on all public transports.
My kind of city!!
As I said before, the transportation system is fantastic. The Metro is a train system, like our Go trains, that has 16 lines into the CBD, on 830 km of track, above ground. Almost 700 000 passengers use it every weekday.
Melbourne also has the largest tram system in the world.
Toronto eat your heart out!
One thing I have observed is that Australians are close to Canadians, on the obesity scale. It's interesting, I have met a lot of Australians, wherever I have travelled, and they have all been fit and slim. I have discovered that the average Australian doesn't travel, either that or there is a Phys Ed test you have to pass, before you get a passport.
There are just as many "hefty" people here as in Canada.
Only two more days left before we leave Melbourne. It's been a pleasure.
Ralf

Melbourne Oct. 11

Wet and showers; high 13, low 8.
I just noticed that the gods of the Internet gobbled up my blog from a couple of days ago.
The main story line, on that day, was my success in fixing the GPS. I was very proud of myself.
The problem was that gremlins in the glove compartment, turned off all the maps, while we were enjoying the wildlife sanctuary in Healesville.
I spent about an hour on the net trying to get an answer. One site guaranteed an immediate answer, so I spent ten minutes typing in all the information. THEN they tell it will cost me 46 dollars.
Those of you that know me are aware of my financially frugal nature. No way I was parting with that amount of money, unless a beautiful woman was involved.
So back to the Internet, and I hit pay dirt. I wasn't the first person who has had that problem, and after four clicks I was back in business
The score.     Ralf 1. GPS 0
Anyway, back to today. It was the perfect day to stay indoors so we visited the Ian Potter Gallery of Art. This gallery is right downtown, very modern, very beautiful. The main attraction is their collection of aboriginal art. This art is unique, I haven't seen anything like it. It is very abstract, and concerns itself with the myths of the original people of Australia. The paintings are very colourful, but, without a description there is no way to tell what you are looking at. Actually, even with a description, there is no way of telling whst you are looking at.
The art very striking, certainly worth the visit.
In another part of the gallery there were paintings on bark, that were wonderful. I also saw some lovely decorated totem poles. Because of the nomadic culture few original pieces have survived. All the paintings we saw were created only recently. I guess this is similar to the art work of our Inuit.
The gallery also has a large collection of Australian art through the years. To be perfectly honest most look like second class European art works. The one exception was the modern section, photography, sculptures, and some paintings. There are some original works which are very striking.
I still can't get over the absence of high rise building in most of Melbourne. Melbourne has a population of over 4 million, but the only high rises are right in the center. It would be as if you take the Go train from Burlington to Toronto, and the first office tower or high rise apartment building you see is in downtown Toronto. Its as if you were to draw a circle of radius one kilometer from Union Station, and once you cross that boundary there are only 2 or 3 story buildings. It feels surreal.
There are some very interesting towers in the CBD. The most impressive is the 88 story Eureka Tower.
It's not the only one, but it is the tallest and the most impressive.
Only three more days before we move on!
Ralf

Melbourne Oct. 10

The weather has been changeable. Mornings are cool, but very sunny. By noon it starts to get cloudy, and the sun is gone all afternoon. It did rain one night, but not during the day.
We drove, about an hour, to Ballarat. This area is famous for being the center of the Australian gold rush, that started in the 1850's. It lasted longer than the California gold rush, and produced a lot more gold. People are still finding good sized gold nuggets.
During this time the Tapai Revolution was taking place in China, and a lot of Chinese tried to find their fortune in Australia. This led to a lot of racial tensions, and mistreatment of the Chinese. The number of Chinese immigrants led to the "White Australia" policy of the first Australian Constitution in 1901.
Sovereign Hill is a tourist attraction that recreates a mining town from that period. It's like one of our pioneer villages.
One of the neat thing is that school groups stay here for a two day "pioneer experience". They wear period costumes, experience what school would be like in those days, and get a chance to pan for gold.
Sovereign Hill does show the Chinese experience, and explains it well.
There is a mine that you go down, with holograms of live size miners, and the proper sound effects.
It doesn't just cover the early days of the gold rush, but also the later years, by which time shafts were down much lower, and steam engines were an important part of the mining industry. I really enjoyed this part. No electric motors, everything is powered by steam, and there are huge pulley systems to work the machines. It was impressive.
There are also demonstrations, but each one is on only once or twice a day, so it's difficult to see them all.
I must admit that one of my problems is that we went to Colonial Williamsburg in July, and the way Americans  represent the history of their period is, by far, the best I have ever experienced.
Sovereign Hill was interesting, and I'm happy we saw it.
There is also a Gold Museum, but, after 4 hours of walking around the pioneer site, it was a bit dry.
All in all it was a good day, and the GPS worked perfectly. He actually sounded less stressed, now that he had his maps back.
Have fun
Ralf

Melbourne Oct. 8

This has been the shortest summer I have ever see. It was 28 one day last week, but that was it. Back to highs around 15, lows at 5. My thermal underwear is getting a real workout.
George, our GPS, is still on strike. It is amazing how dependent one gets on these gadgets. We went to Philip Island, which is about a two hour drive south of Melbourne, but you have to drive right through the city. The GPS kept telling us we were on a non-existent highway. The map showed us in the middle of a field. Luckily I had checked our route, on the iPad, using Google maps, and I had written out the directions. Coming home was more fun, no Google maps.
It was a lovely day, although there were some showers, and a cold wind.
Philip Island reminded us of PEI. It's not as big, only 29 by 9 km, and it has a more rugged shoreline, but the same green hills, fertile farms, and isolation. It is the most southerly point of the mainland. South, in the distance, is Tasmania.
It is now a nature preserve, and noted for its wildlife. There is a colony of small penguins, that, every night, returns from a day of feeding in the ocean. So at dusk there is a parade of little penguins, that come on the beach, and waddle by the tourists, to their nests. We saw the same thing in New Zealand. It's quite a sight.
There are also two seal rocks, about a kilometer offshore. It is the largest seal colony in Australia. There are 16 000 seals. Today 15996 of them were on holidays, and I'm not sure whether we saw the other four. Even with good binoculars it was a bit misty, but I think we saw four lying on the rocks.
There are lots of birds, such as herons, pelicans, and others, that we had no idea of what they were.
The scenery was lovely. Rocky shorelines, green hills, very pastoral.
Made we want to get out of the car, and run naked through the fields, anything to get away from George and his "recalculating"

Melbourne Oct. 7

Yesterday was our first rainy day in Melbourne. It wasn't a hard rain, but it was on and off all day.
Nice day to relax by the fireplace.
A first for me was that I "borrowed" an ebook from the Hamilton Library. Isn't technology fantastic. Here I am on the other side of the globe, reading a book that I just borrowed. All on my iPad. Amazing!
We did some house cleaning, just to see what will be involved when we leave.
Daylight savings time arrived in Australia today, so now we are 15 hours ahead. That means I have to wait till Tuesday afternoon to find out who won the Monday Night football game. Life is tough.
It was cool today, high of 16, and cloudy. We visited the city again, and found out that for the next week, seniors travel FREE on all city transports. What a nice present.
Australia is amazing with all the free offerings. The Botanical Gardens are free, so are all the museums and National galleries.
Today was the last day of the Spring School break, and there have been all kinds of free performances. We toured the Docklands today, and caught a great show by an Australian rhythm and blues guitarist and singer, Lloyd Spiegel. Just a drummer, his acoustic guitar, and his voice. It was great. I don't think I have seen, or heard, a better guitarist. He was amazing. He even sang Ronnie Hawkins' "Who do you love". A very enjoyable hour.
Another nice feature, for visitors to the city is a free tourist bus that takes you on an hour and a half tour of the city. It's a nice way to see the main points, and there are 13 stops, where you can get on and off.
There is also a free city loop trolley which circles the inner city, which is also on-off.
I still have to rave about the trains. The are like our Go trains, but much more numerous. There are 12 different lines into the city from various directions. Some come from so far out that it takes an hour from the terminal station to down-town. That would be like 12 Go train lines into Union Station. And the maximum is 7 dollars a day, 3.60 for seniors. Wouldn't that be nice. And they are fast!
I should make a correction about the cost of food. Meat prices are reasonable, lamb is a lot cheaper here. The quality of the meat products, eggs, cheese and milk is superior to Canada. I don't get the impression that there are factory farms, everything is much more local.
Fruit is more expensive, and so are baked goods, and coffee.
But the quality is high.
Have fun,
Ralf