Melbourne Trip

I've just been to Melbourne for 5 days to attend the State of Australia's Cities conference (SOAC). I presented one paper and Rebecca, who also attended, also presented a paper ... maybe the first father and daughter act in the event's history. However the event didn't start until Tuesday evening with a mayoral reception in the town hall and we both arrived early on the Monday after meeting up in Sydney, where Bec had been for a wedding over the weekend.

After checking into our nice two-bedroom apartment on Melbourne's Lygon Street, we explored the city centre, which Bec was visiting for the first time. I attach some photos of what we saw on our walkabout around the city centre.

Bec spotted this one: a roof-top garden, which is uncommon in our cities.

This shows Federation Square - a riot of colour and curiously shaped buildings.

Just at the entrance to Federation Square, we saw a novel way of getting around an Australian city in the form of horse-drawn transport. Strangely this, and other pictures could not be uploaded in the right direction, so tilt your computers accordingly.

And here we are on the banks of Melbourne's little ditch ... the Yarra river. It's not as big as Sydney's harbour, but the greenspace is useful for things like the Melbourne Cricket Ground (seats 100,000) and the Rod Laver Tennis centre in the background.

Melbourne's trams also run sideways. This is a heritage version which circles the CBD in a large loop. It's free and one can hop and off at will to see the sights. We did.

On the way we stopped at Carlton Gardens ... a pleasant park. This was the gateway to two lovely buildings shown below: The 19th Century Exhibition building, still used today and the Melbourne Museum. We visited the marvellous King Tut display on loan from Egypt.

Also on the way around by tram we spent a long time walking around Docklands, an area which was once what its name implies, but now like the London Docklands downstream from Tower Bridge wholly gentrified.

It was a nice day out, but we were tired by the time we returned to our apartment!

AS