Victoria: Melbourne

Another good flight with Qantas from Uluru to Melbourne. They seem to be a pretty good airline. If I were to rank the airlines I have flown so far I would go from top to bottom as follows:- Singapore; Qantas; JetStar; Virgin; ANZ.

We are in the Savoy Hotel, which is an old hotel situated at one end of the CBD, nice room, facilities OK. Victorian with moulded plaster cove and central surround to the rose. We met up with Malcolm & Maria, the nice couple we met on the POW, for a guided tour of the inner city and dinner out on Lygon. We had a really nice time and will be seeing them again on Sunday.

Everything in the town centre is easy to get, either walking, by free tram or free bus. To go wider you can use the extensive public bus and tram system. The tram we were on yesterday was built in 1936 and still doing well. We wandered around the Federation Square, Jarra river promenades, down to docklands and back up to the state parliament building and the parks. Fed Square is a very lively place with free entertainment going on, both street and organised varieties. Jazz was Friday and Oman culture Saturday. We will see what the rest of the week brings. It is all very civilised and the weather so far is fabulous, low humidity and 25 Celsius. We ate in one of the restaurants on the bank of the Jarra and strolled down to the Crown, a big "pokie" place, built on Vegas lines, with an outdoor fireball display on the hour every evening.

It looks very dry here, like there has been little rain through the summer, browning grass and signs declaring that the green grass is only watered from reclaimed sources. We are opposite Southern Cross railway station, a big place, Euston size, with a modern new, award winning roof. Its huge, acres, but none of the rain is collected for re-use. Pity when water is so short.

After the lack of wildlife in Uluru, we have come across some her. Rats, bats and possums as we drank coffee on the Jarra bank as the sun went down - stacks of birds and loads of eels in the lakes in the botanic gardens.

Melbourne is really nice, the best place we have stayed in Aus. The CBD is compact with a mix of historical and modern. There are a lot of nice walks - around the original Victorian parts, now worth millions of course - around docklands, old and new, the botanic gardens which are magnificent - around the alleyways. There is a good free circular bus and tram system, narrated, hop on-hop off variety. There is loads and loads of eat out streets, both on the river and in town and the suburbs. We ate out in Ivanhoe, v. romantic Arthurian name eh! This is a suburban high street but we had great grub with the Malcolm & Maria, the Aussie folks I mentioned previously.

We are going out to the theatre tomorrow, 39 Steps, old Buchan classic & Hitchcocked into a film in the 30's.

Driving is interesting here, what with the trams. They have some "turn on red" lefts, which we could do with and also "hook" right turns. You have to be careful and watch out for the signs on the intersections. You have to turn right from the LH side of the road, you pull over to the middle of the LHS and wait until the crossing road goes green and then you go. Its interesting parking 90 degrees across the tram lines with the tram approaching.

I have seen a lot of people who look like Mark Neal over here, they also behave like him! I wonder - could he have moved over here and made a success out of cloning technology - spooky.

Speaking of people, my cousin lives here - but she is in England, visiting. Our old next door neighbours emigrated here to Melbourne 30 years ago. We lost touch with them, but super sleuth Lin found their address and tel number in the book. We rang them, guess what - they are on hols in NZ. Bizarre.

We will soon be leaving for the gold fields - Ballarrat, Bendigo and the Great Ocean Rd. We have done it again, we are leaving on ANZAC day, which is a public holiday. Duh, duh, duuh! will it be a re-run of Mackay, with no room at the inn, wait and see.