We headed out and enjoyed a healthy breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and tea at a nearby cafe all for $10 each. We'd got a few bits of shopping to do and wanted to go the the tourist information centre to get some info on Victoria so headed down towards Federation Square. Melbourne is known as Australia's cultural capital with gold rush era architecture and is very multi cultural. It's also home to a number of key sporting venues including the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Rod Laver Tennis Stadium and the Etihad Stadium. The city centre is a mix of wide main streets and laneways. Federation Square at the south end of the centre is a rather strange mix of buildings in a undulating and patterned forecourt. It corners Flinders Street Station, built in 1854 and Melbourne's first railway station and a beautiful neoclassical building topped with a striking octagonal dome. Opposite is St Paul's Cathedral, built between 1880 and 1891 which features ornate stained glass windows and provided a respite from the c40 degree heat outside. We'd stopped for lunch on Swanston Street when the first rain started to fall and decided to jump on the City Tourist Bus to get to see some more of the sights and stay out of the rain. The tour took 90 minutes and as we got near to the end the rain turned into a torrential downpour with strong winds. We read later that a group of sky divers got caught out by the storm and blown off course with some landing just off the coast in shallow waters. Luckily there were no serious injuries. We'd arranged to meet Raewyn and Bill, who we met in Laos, late afternoon outside Flinders Street Station and wandered over to Federation Square for a bite to eat. Bill is recuperating after having a new knee fitted just before Christmas. It was lovely to see them again and hopefully we'll be able to catch up again before we head off to New Zealand. From here we headed back to our hotel and enjoyed a beer on the balcony admiring the Melbourne skyline and the lightening (no thunder though).
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| Eureka Tower from Federation Square |
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Flinders Street Station
The view from our balcony |
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