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We saw much in Melbourne, as we were there sporadically over 2 months, and now I’ve had the time, I’ve compiled a few photos and a bit of info about the things we saw and did. There is also much more, which we’ve covered before, so look around the rest of the blog if you’re interested!!

Melbourne offers the following:

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Australia

The first time we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens was to watch an open air movie, Brokeback Mountain, which I discussed in a previous post. However, while we were there, even in the twilight, it was obvious that the Gardens were pretty nice, so nice that they warranted a revisit during daylight hours…

There are lots of interesting and exotic plants, flowers and trees scattered around. I don’t know the names of all (many, any) of them, but they look nice, and the park is a tranquil haven in the centre of a busy city. Nice bit of green space!

Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia

We went to Albert Park mainly because the Grand Priz is held around there and I was driving Julians 3.5 litre V6 beast of a car… Not really, because the speed limit is 40Ks, however, we did have to park up and kill some time, so we went there. We had brought our swimming gear in case we went ot the beach, but there is a really good swimming pool in the park (where they held the commonwealth games swimming event and have the swimming world championships soon), which we used for a good few hours. We sauna’d and spa’d as well as swimming as we waited to collect Julian who was at the time on crutches.

We also had a walk around the lake and took these photos. It is a nice place to while away some time, and the swimming pool is extremely good.

The Rialto Tower, Melbourne, Australia

Possibly the highest building in the city… I say possibly, because there is one across the river that looks higher to the naked eye. You have to pay around $15 a person to go up it in the lift, but the view is very good from the top. Unfortunately for us, we picked a day where the smoke from all of Victoria’s numerous bushfires had drifted over Melbourne, so we could not see that much. However, I did get to take some photos, as you can see.

Perhaps the highlight of the visit was at the bottom of the tower, as included in the price, “you also get to see Rialtovision!” which is a cinema. It is a pretty cheesy video, which I somewhat cheekily filmed on my camera, but won’t put up on this site due to the size of the file, and also the copywrite infringments this may cause. A great video, though perhaps not meant as a comedy, I certainly laughed for many an hour afterward. Think Alan Partridge directing a promotional video about Norwich and you’ll be somewhere near the mark. Rialtovision was worth the cover price alone…

The State Parliament, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Tours of the state parliament buildings are free. This is a bonus when you’re funding your travels by asking strangers for donations. So we did the full tour.

One tour had just set off when we arrived, but the nice chap at the door said we could join, instead of waiting an hour for the next one – a great start. It did get a little worse when we went through security, which consisted of a full scan for explosives etc by two intimidating women. We had to stick little “V” stickers on our chests – not our bags – once cleared, which was a little reminiscent of primary school trips, but probably a worthwhile security measure (in today’s paranoid climate…).

Anyhoo, we joined onto the tour (which was actually only two other people, an American son and mother combo) and looked round the building. A nice enough place, if hankering for a longer history than it actually has. This is true of much of Australia, as its history – the European, government type stuff – only really begins mid-nineteenth century. We got some photos and had a good look round. The library is nice.

Ramsay Street

We went to the real Ramsay Street, but more on that in the Ramsay Street post…