Melbourne

  Melbourne, Australia
Sunday, March 16, 2008

I arrived in Melbourne on 16th March, the end of the Australian summer. It was therefore, very hot! Somewhere around 38 degrees in the daytime if I remember rightly! All that has changed now though as it's Autumn so it's erm, well much the same as Autumn in the UK! The weather here is very changeable though. somebody said to me "if you don't like the weather in Melbourne just wait a few minutes & it will have changed" thats probably quite true! 

Sunset from our balcony

I don't know what I expected of Melbourne really, maybe something quite small, some older buildings maybe...

The Myer department store

Melbourne was established in 1835 (named after the then prime minister Lord Melbourne) so I expected the architecture to be mainly Victorian or Georgian. This is largely the case in some of the suburbs but in the CBD where we are living it's huge sky scrapers, mainly belonging to big banks, so you have to look quite hard to find the smaller, older buildings.

The city, from the Botanical gardens

Barbecue by the Yarra

On my second day in Melbourne (after a very long sleep) we went for a barbecue by the river Yarra which runs through the middle of the city. We had lovely views of the river & city on one side of us & the botanical gardens on the other.

Melbourne sunset

I have also visited Melbourne jail since I've been here which was very interesting. Some very famous Australian criminals such as Ned Kelly, the infamous bush ranger were hung there. The whole place is very creepy, even in the day, not so much scary, it just really makes your skin crawl. I didn't take any photos there.

The shrine of rememberence

ANZAC (Australian & new Zealand army corps) day in Australia is kind of like rememberence Sunday in the UK, except that it's a public holiday & here it is observed by alot of people.
The date, 25th April marks the day that Australia first joined in the second world war effort. It is marked with a dawn service, followed by parades.

Nat, Ali & Neil walking from ANZAC day service

We went to the Melbourne service in the botanical gardens (6am eek!) it was also lovely to watch the sunrise afterwards.

Sunrise on ANZAC day

Sunrise over the Yarra & City.