11. Melbourne

11. Melbourne

We flew into Melbourne to the searing heat. It was touching 40 degrees. After a couple of wrong turns, we arrived at our apartment. We had chosen an apartment in the Heidelberg district of Melbourne. 

We knew that the apartment had recently been built, but didn’t realise how new. It is in a block of 22.  Our apartment was the only one occupied. The elevator still had it’s wrapping on.

We drove into the Docklands area and did some shopping before taking the tram into the city centre. We decided to get transport passes for the train, tram and bus.

We bought these from the information kiosk where we also enquired about tickets for the Australian Open Tennis. We purchased ground passes for the next day. Before heading  home we had a wander through the streets reacquainting ourselves with the city.

Parking is expensive in Melbourne so we headed to the tennis by foot, bus and train. 

Our passes allowed us access to all areas except the main two arenas. We got seats in the Hisense arena where we watched a legends doubles match between John and Patrick McEnroe and Mats Wilander and Tom Johannson. It was very light hearted and fun. The usual mock outrage and racquet throwing.

Next on court was a women’s singles 3^rd round match between Sasnovich and Garcia. It was a great game to watch. Garcia made it through to the next round.

  We had been sitting for hours so decided to head outside and see what was going on out there.  We bought something to eat and wandered about taking in the atmosphere.

At the practice courts we watched Nick Kirgios for a while.

We then queued for show court 3 where we saw a men’s singles match between Kicker and Fucsovics. 

The men’s game is so fast and powerful.  Great to watch. 

A few years ago we met Wilma and Glen who stay in Melbourne.  They are friends of Hazel and Dave, our friends in Portlethen. 

We got in touch with Wilma and arranged to meet up with them on Sunday.  We spent a lovely afternoon with them.

Lunch on the Southbank and a cruise along the river before we headed back to their home for a while. It was great to meet up with them again.

Some time at the beach was called for so we made our way to St Kilda.  We sat on the sands for a while before walking along the boardwalk then heading into the town for some coffee and cake.

Our final day and we decided to head out of Melbourne and head for the hills.  The Dandenong Range had been recommended so we drove to Olinda.

It has a beautiful walk through the gardens.

There is a small sanctuary nearby called the William Ricketts Sanctuary. Ricketts spent the latter half of his life creating sculpture of the Aboriginal people.  William believed that the Aborigines had been mistreated and wanted to give them a sanctuary.

The sculptures are located within the grounds of his home. You follow the winding path and come across the various sculptures.  They are very lifelike.

At a picnic area within the mountain range there is a place where you can feed the local birds. The birds obviously flock to this area so we thought it would be a change to get up close to the birds. The area was full of parrots, cockatoos and galahs.

Thought we'd take a stroll through the forest. Lots of huge mountain ash trees.

 The sign said that the 20 minute round trip path would take us into the area where the elusive Lyrebird could be found. Unfortunately for us the direction signs were also elusive. An hour and a half later we found our way back. No sign of the Lyrebird either.