2018 – Part 32 – Exploring Melbourne
Unlike the prior week, our plan was to stay in central Melbourne and explore the downtown area of Australia’s second largest city.
Getting around CDB Melbourne
Before highlighting the places we explored, the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne public transit has free tram (streetcar) for all passengers. This allowed us to hop on and hop off and make what would have been a lot of walking, into a day filled with walking supplemented by transit. The stops where you are able to leave the free area are clearly marked along with announced on board the trams.
In addition there is a route that operates exclusively inside the CBD area, properly titled “City Circle” line. We took it for a few stops.
One spot we stopped at that was near the edge of the free area was the State Library. We were on the search for a particular store, and it was located in the mall across the street from the Library. While we waited for a tram to take us back towards the Yarra River I snapped a few pictures of the statues outside of the library:
Yarra River
From the library we headed to Melbourne, Flinders Street station. The style, and colour of the building is iconic and cannot be missed. Directly across the street (above the train tracks) was Federation Square. Here there are several galleries. Although we were interested in exploring none of the gallery features caught our interest.
Before we continued on, we grabbed some refreshments.
Walking along the Yarra river is well developed and is an absolute pleasure given the good fall weather we had. There was no shortage of bars and restaurants along the way. As well, the river walk gave us an excellent opportunity to take in the skyline of the city.
After our walk we then had a late lunch, but it wasn’t around the river. Instead we headed up to Chinatown to have Dim Sum. 
With a combination of hunger, and impatience our restaurant choice worked out well. By the time we arrived in Chinatown both of us were hungry, however frustrated as she couldn’t remember which restaurant she wanted to try. So before she could re-trace her online search steps, I searched for Dim Sum closest to where we stood. We ended up at Garden Jade Restaurant. Here Dim Sum is wheeled around and presented on carts. As we left, she commented “I think this was one of two restaurants that I wanted to try.” The meal worked out just fine, and afternoon nap was in order to work off all the food.
Artwork in the City
One item prominently featured in tourism for Melbourne is spray paint. It’s not hard to find places and things that have been painted.
In an alley
Entrance to an alley
Outside Federation Square
…and humour
Aussie Rules Football
Friday evening had us heading out to watch a sport unique to Australia. Without knowing the teams, I selected whatever fit our schedule a match between the Western Bulldogs and Carlton. As we made our way to our seats one of the other fans informed us that we were not in for a treat — it’s was a battle for the basement as both teams had yet to win a match during the season.
Pre-game show
Early in the match
Action shot 1
Action shot 2
Dedicated sections in the stadium
Seated on the upper level, the fans seated around us provided us with a summary of how the game is played. To me, an interesting part is that extra time, or injury time is not announced, so neither team how much extra time is to be played. At half time Carlton was clearly setting up camp in the basement. Being seated around Carlton fans, there wasn’t much too cheer, instead many opportunities to point out missed chances.
These displays of fruit was around every almost every concession stand. We talked with one of the volunteers about the displays. It is a program to provide healthy options at sporting matches. We ended up chatting with her for a while as we quickly noticed she didn’t have an Australian accent, and was originally from the Greater Toronto Area.
Our way back to the hotel was a simple tram ride and then short walk down the hill to our hotel. 
During our short walk to our hotel we passed three nightclubs that already had growing lines of partygoers on a Friday night. Amber laughed many times, glancing at everybody in line and remarking several times “yeah I couldn’t walk more than 5 steps in heels like that.” Both of us chuckled that we much rather have a good sleep instead of partying until dawn. That and we had a weekend of driving ahead of us. Best to be well rested!
Cars in Melbourne
I love cars and being in Melbourne reminded me that metropolitan areas provide no shortage of exotic or expensive vehicles. Below are two that I captured from our day downtown:
The second vehicle I spotted wasn’t the vehicle, but how it was parked. We walked by this Bentley that had its windows rolled down. Before I could ask the question of why, the owner’s pet started to inspect us!
Read more about our trip by clicking here.