2018 – Part 20 – A Day in Melbourne

2018 – Part 20 – Exploring a bit of Melbourne

No road trip today.  Instead we had a day to explore the city while we transferred between hotels.  We had a morning flight the next day, and both of us didn’t want to have to get up any earlier than required.  So what did we do after check-out and before check-in?

Albert Park, aka F1 Grand Prix Circuit

After checking out of our hotel in St. Kilda, it was a short drive to Albert Park.  This is the site of Formula 1 races, and with one exception you are able to travel the route, just like the drivers.  Except it’s two way traffic.  And the speed limit is 50 km/h, and there were no shortage of cyclists, and there was a chicane (!) around the pit area.

For me, visiting another track was great.  After a lap (or two) we stopped at the pit area. 

Outside of the race weekend there are several sports facilities in the park, even including a gym around the pit garages.  While we were taking pictures a few people looked like their were late for their league game.

Here’s a slideshow of more pictures from Albert Park:

And I have a video ready!  Check it out here.

Botanical Gardens & Shrine of Remembrance

From there I wanted to head to the Botanical Gardens.  I remembered from my trip in 2006, the gardens seemed quite large and had many different varieties of plants and trees.  Our plans though were dashed — with the excellent weather we weren’t able to find parking, and instead settled on driving a lap of the gardens, including driving by the Shrine of Remembrance, their war memorial site.

South Melbourne Market

After giving up on trying to find parking around the botanical gardens we headed over to a market that Amber thought would be worthwhile for us to check out.

After several attempts driving around the neighbourhood we got a parking close to one of the doors.  For Toronto based folks, imagine the St. Lawrence Market, that is probably two or three times larger, with even more people.  The market sells many goods and the speciality is anything food.  There was no shortage of options for us to find lunch, and we settled on a Asian fusion restaurant.  We shared our meals and thoroughly enjoyed them. 

People watching was great as other went about their Sunday grabbing a meal between their shopping.  With the excellent weather, I spotted a McLaren 720 that I had to grab a few pictures of the car.

Full from lunch, I checked online if there was a mini-fridge in our hotel (there’s supposed to be), and we then looked around for ingredients for a simple dinner.  Once satisfied that we had acquired sufficiently tasty cheese and crackers we then made the short drive up to our hotel, situated near the airport.  On our way we stopped at a grocery store to complement the cheese and crackers.

We’ll get more of Melbourne after we return from Tasmania where the plan is to explore the downtown area.

Read more about our trip by clicking here.