The Trip Part 5: Melbourne

[stephbg]

It’s a few weeks since our return so I’d best try to get something down about Melbourne before it all flees my aged head. I’m afraid it’s a bit long.

I have skipped our second day in Hobart, but tl;dr we took a bus tour up Mt Wellington then pottered about a bit until our afternoon flight. Might get back to it because hello, rock pictures. Creepy rock pictures suspended in the mist even. Woo. Spooky.

In Melbourne we stayed at the Hotel Windsor again, having fallen in love with it six months ago during a stay after another Adelaide niece wedding. Deja vu anyone? Not quite as much as we would have liked for on that first stay we had a spectacularly good deal from Wotif, and this time had to settle for a merely very good deal with no buffet breakfast. This time we were booked in to the smallest room type “suitable for single travellers or overnight stays” which sounded a bit poky so I asked if we could upgrade. Despite the fluttering of the eyelashes we were required to pay extra, but I’m convinced it was worth it, for I knew I’d see an awful lot of that room.

And what a lovely room it was too. Not quite so big as our last, but this time the “marble bathroom” was indeed tiled in marble. The last one was fossil jasper – nice, but not marble. There was indeed a bath, but sadly it didn’t hold water too well so I never really managed a satisfying soak while I was there. There was a bit of plumbing trauma when the loo wouldn’t stop running, but Husband did the manly thing and jiggled something, and eventually it sorted itself out. Eventually.

For the rest it was lovely, and I gave the mattress a thorough testing during my stay and made sure I had one room service meal. Husband managed to get out and about for much of my downtime, so he saw a few extra touristy things. What I really love about the Windsor is the lavish decoration in the corridors and lobby. I tried to take some photos of architectural details, but my little camera wasn’t really up to the job. But trust me when I say the contrast to the Macquarie Manor was considerable!

I seem to take a lot of pictures of floors. Also my camera seems to take every picture at a slight tilt these days. Perhaps it needs a wheel alignment.

On our first full day we went to the royal botanic gardens. Although it would have been an easy bus or tram ride from where we were staying, I’d decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to deal with the Myki system, and so we caught a taxi to cross the river. Rather to my surprise the taxi driver couldn’t identify the main entrance although I’d seen it on plenty of maps, so he dropped us by the side of the road next to a park in the vicinity of the botanic gardens. This wasn’t the park we were looking for, so a bit of energy was expended on making it to the right place. Only a few hundred metres, but when you’re me that makes a big difference.

Still, terribly nice to be outside and with Husband. I’d put up with far worse if I’ve got that.

We had a nice late breakfast at the cafe (I now understand why maple syrup and bacon are served together), then started looking for interesting bits of greenery. After a few false starts wandering into a research building then finding ourselves on another barren bit of lawn we eventually got to the greenhouse, which I have to say was disappointingly small. I thought we’d stumbled into an off-display potting shed at first. It was pretty, but it was modest.

Still, perseverance was rewarded with small but perfectly formed corners here and there.

Fortunately I like small.

I am now convinced that my ability to read maps must have been shot off during the war. I have become truly appalling at navigation. Husband is better, but it’s not one of his strengths. However he does have the strength to go on sorties to scout the land ahead, so we are now practiced at planting me somewhere while he goes off in search of signage. That said we both agreed that the botanic park map was largely a work of fiction.

We did find ourselves in a nice tropical sort of woodland area of dappled light and twisty paths which was really nice. Husband took a nice picture without my knowledge which showed me diligently studying the map (yet again), but let’s pretend it was a book of French poetry. Can’t get hold of it just now, but enjoy these instead:

We then sat in the shade of a tree by a pond for a while. That was nice.

Nice being a considerable understatement.

At the gift shop we scored a fridge magnet with a tram on it, then started to plan our escape. We aimed for one of the nearby exits on a largish road, taking a slight detour to visit another landmark. This was supposed to be a pavilion draped in exotic flowers, except the flowers weren’t in bloom, and the "pavilion" was more like a little summer house. Oh well. Saw some nice bits of Chinese garden along the way so the detour was not in vain. We got out, only had to wait 10 minutes or so for a taxi (I <3 the number of Melbourne taxis) then returned to the hotel.

On another day we went to the Museum. It ended up being closer than the map suggested (note to self – brain is not map-compatible), so rather than take the free Citylink tram we chose another short taxi ride to take us right to the door. Rather to our surprise our driver took deep offence at our crime of paying for his services for such a short distance. It had taken him 45 minutes to get that spot in the taxi rank outside our hotel, he said, and it would take him another 45 minutes to get it back. We had ruined his whole day. We didn’t allow him to ruin ours, but it was just a little weird.

At the museum we tried something new and borrowed a wheelchair for me, as slow meandering about with frequent pauses to look at things is very expensive spoon-wise. It worked OK, and I didn’t have to try anything particularly difficult. Steering was surprisingly easy and I killed at parallel parking. There were a few spots I couldn’t go but I was content to miss them.

The most impressive thing was the hall of dinosaurs with a really good selection of skeletons. I was most pleased to make the acquaintance of Phar Lap, and admired his shoulders. The tropical rainforest was different but too steep for us to negotiate the whole thing. As for the rest my memory is getting a little vague, but I don’t recall it being anything out of the ordinary. I can get very impatient with excessively educational audio-visual displays, and while Husband is a dedicated plaque reader many sections held no special interest for him either. We really couldn’t afford to linger anywhere that wasn’t especially interesting.

I’d found out ahead of time that the gift shop sold rocks, so was looking forward to temptation. The staff were in a bit of a flurry as the shop was in the process of re-opening after renovations, so displays and stocks were being tweaked around us as we browsed. The rocks were reasonable, but there was nothing there that demanded to be added to my collection. This isn’t surprising in anything less than a speciality shop so I wasn’t too disappointed. We did come away with a Phar Lap fridge magnet and a rather lovely plush mammoth who I’ve named Mugg (mammoth + hug). Mugg is a not 1:1 scale mammoth, so managed the trip home in my suitcase with no difficulty.

After the museum we admired the old exhibition building from outside, crossed some more nice gardens then went to Wunderkammer, a curio shop where I hoped to find something interesting. Perth is sadly deficient in such establishments. Made rather a fool of myself by suggesting to the owner that he’d mislabelled a rock specimen, but he nicely said that he also hadn’t believed its classification at first. The stock of bones, scientific instruments and antique medical paraphernalia was fun to look at (although I held my breath constantly for fear of tipping head first into expensive displays of glassware), but there was nothing there in my price range that really appealed or that I couldn’t get easily and more cheaply elsewhere. I did fork out a whole $2 for a small sample of the snakeskin jasper I’d sworn was no jasper (it looked for all the world like obsidian) but felt mildly ashamed for doing so when most of the stock was in four figures.

On the way back to the hotel we stocked up on Haigh’s and I picked up several wildly discounted scarves, some of them silk. That was probably me for the rest of that day.

On the Thursday late afternoon evening I’d scheduled in a Meet-Steph-in-Melbourne session for anyone who wanted to catch up in the flesh, as it were, and I was most pleased by the turnout. I even got to meet an Internet friend I’d only ever seen on TV, which was a nice surprise. He thanked me for giving him an excuse to leave the house.

I confess I felt a bit anxious as soon as anyone looked even the slightest bit bored or tired – I felt personally responsible for keeping everyone entertained but just couldn’t begin to do it. Still, no-one feigned death to escape--or simply cut to the chase and ran screaming out the door--so I suppose it was a success as far as these new-fangled social activity thingamies go. Granted it was a touch warm, but we’d successfully staked out a lounge area and I was not giving it up.

On one evening we had dinner just around the corner in Burke Street at The Spaghetti Tree, which had wonderfully rich theatrical decor. I took pictures of the carpet and the lights, as you do. Food was pretty nice too.

Between the two trips we’ve seen quite a lot of Melbourne near the corner of Spring Street and Bourke Street. Haven’t even exhausted the possibilities there but really should try somewhere different next time.

On our last morning we went down to Federation Square for brunch and I visited a studio art glass gallery which had the most wonderful collection of art and studio glass I’ve ever seen. Really lovely stuff, and really terrifying to imagine packing it for shipment. The shop was playing tango music which was very difficult to resist, and I got the name of the CD on my way out.

That’s about all the brain can supply at this point. In the intervals I slept and read, and consumed rather a lot of chocolate and Tasmanian fudge. Husband additionally saw Captain Cook’s cottage, did a tour of Parliament House, and caught some jazz and did other things normal people can do.

I really like Melbourne. Not sure what it would be like to live there (the Windsor does not really prepare one for the realities of supermarkets, suburbia, doctor’s appointments, and commuting, plus we’ve never been rained on), but it’s a great place to visit.

Comments

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

I always feel similarly when I host get togethers or events! (this will surely not bode well for being the chair of a con in terms of my anxiety)