MELBOURNE,                        return to home page VICTORIA        click photos to enlarge     on to Tasmania

We decided instead of sailing the boat down to Melbourne in Victoria and then on to Tasmania we'd take the easy route and fly over.  So we spent a week in Melbourne where we stayed at a lovely B&B, Robinson's in the City. We were walking distance to the main CBD and filled our days with as much sight-seeing as possible. Melbourne is a vivacious city with a lot of energy and so much to do.  We went to the parliament house and took a tour of the beautiful old building and we also went to the old treasury building where they used to store all the gold from the gold rush days of the 1800s in huge stone vaults down in the basement. They did a great job of setting it up with audio/visual displays for the current museum now open to the public. We also did what they called a ghost tour, after dark, of the old Melbourne jail (spelled gaol) where they locked up some of the worst criminals in Australia in the 1800s and hung them as well. It's a pretty amazing building in itself, but what was most special about it was the presentation in which they gave the tour. It was done as a theatrical production with an actor that took us on the tour and told us old, true stories of criminals and historical facts. We got a similar tour of the Womens Factory (prison) in Tasmania later.  Melbourne also has great restaraunts as well as theater and night life.  Plus Richard found plenty of his favorite beers in several pubs we discovered. They still have a complete running electric tram system that runs all day and night around the city, some of it free and some not, but still very affordable.

One of the highlights of our Melboune visit was the Theater. We had the opportunity to go see  the Barry Humphries show, Dame Edna and Friends, and laughed until our cheeks hurt. We saw another play with the Melbourne Theater Company and some good music. The architechture is varied from old buildings like the Parliament, Treasury  and Train Station to the other end of the spectrum of ultra-modern stuff like the buildings at Federation Square and the Arts Center. I found that while I prefer the classic old archetecture, the combination of it and the new modern style gave the city a very hip and youthful sophistication which was quite invigorating. They are also building with environmental issues in mind so you'll see a lot of buildings with eco-friendly venting, cooling, heating and electrical systems built into the archetechural designs - very futuristically modern looking.