– APRIL 04-06, 2015
The City of Melbourne has some cool things to experience as you wander the streets. First, there are scattered alleyways with some amazing graffiti. See below…its great that the city has encouraged these works of modern art.
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
Melbourne Street Art
There are some great examples of architectural styles throughout Melbourne as well. The image below has a heritage designated building covered within a large glass dome. This is in the middle of a shopping mall complex, which had many people looking up to see what was going on. The public stopping to look is one way to gauge architectural success.
Melbourne downtown shots
Some wacky architectural facades as well…
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
A cool shot of the waterway…
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
The main light rail station.
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
Jill searched out some cool interior pics as well…
Melbourne downtown shots
Melbourne downtown shots
St Cathedral’s cathedral was closed for Good Friday services, but the exterior was quite impressive.
St Patrick’s Cathedral
St Patrick’s Cathedral
Federation Square includes some museum-style buildings with some interesting stuff to check out.
Federation Square Museum
Federation Square Museum
Federation Square Museum – check out the hanging bats
Federation Square Museum
Federation Square Museum – a hanging piece of melted plastic.
Federation Square Museum – this machine generates random lines drawn on the white wall.
Federation Square Museum – objects hung in opposing lights.
Federation Square Museum – tape film blown between two fans. Really people?????
Federation Square Museum – The car from the original Mad Max!
Across the street from Federation Square is St Paul’s Cathedral. This church we were able to enter. It was typical, but still a nice building.
St Paul’s Cathedral
St Paul’s Cathedral
St Paul’s Cathedral
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) contains “modern art”….sometimes its hard to believe people pay for this stuff.
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria)
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – concrete and rebar sculptures in the main courtyard.
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – wrapped babies?
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – one hell of a scaled model
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – a very cool mirror
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – this guy reminds me of thinking on the toilet
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – a fishing net with bean bags to walk on?
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – this is art?
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) – Patio Lanterns…Kim Mitchell would be so pleased
There is a huge cemetery close to the downtown core, so we had to check it out. Some graves are in great shape, but others look to be in pretty rough shape.
Melbourne Cemetery
Melbourne Cemetery
Melbourne Cemetery
Melbourne Cemetery
The Melbourne Museum has sections dedicated to the animal/human development throughout the world’s history.
Melbourne Museum
Melbourne Museum
Melbourne Museum
Melbourne Museum
Melbourne Museum – huge snakes with Jill for human scale!
Melbourne Museum
We went to a place in Melbourne that won the award of “Best Pizza in Australia” in 2014. We had a veggie pizza for Jill and a prosciutto & salami for myself. A glass of vino topped it off.
Award winning pizza
On Good Friday there was a protest for civil rights beside Federation Square. We had to check this out, as the protesters spoke out against the closure of remote indigenous communities. The people in these remote communities are very few and it costs a lot of money to support these people. The Australian government has proposed stopping the programs that spend millions of dollars bring spent and this has upset a sizeable portion of the population. However, an equally large amount of people showed up to protest back….but somehow they started a debate on Islam. The police showed up and did a nice job to keep the peace. It was something to see.
Easter weekend civil rights protest
The next big activity for us is partaking in the multi-day hike called the “Great Ocean Walk” to see the Twelve Apostles rock formations. Our good friend from Christchurch, Lyn, put us into contact with her friends Diana and Michael Tait in Geelong. Geelong is a one hour train ride on the way to the Great Ocean Walk starting point, so this was a perfect location to stop over for a night.
Diana and Michael were excellent hosts and great people to spend time with. Thank you so much…they not only took care of us before we started the hike and again for the night after the hike ended. They have a beautiful home and we felt like we were back home for the night ourselves.
Diana and Michael
Michael and Diana’s house
Michael and Diana’s house
Now we hit the Great Ocean Walk next…it wouldn’t have been possible without Diana and Michael’s hospitality. Thank you so much!
<><><><><><><><>
For more photos of our adventure go to our flickr account here.
