A Great Trip to Australia
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The Hendersons Melbourne |
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A Great Trip to Australia |
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11 May 2019 Saturday We took the short flight from the island to Adelaide, then a somewhat longer flight to Melbourne. We were meet at the airport and taken to our hotel, the Crown Promenade. First impressions weren't great. The no smoking area is right by the lobby entry, so the lobby smells of smoke - we just aren't used to that. Our room was fine. We ventured out for dinner. My goodness, in the same complex is a huge casino, and shops and restaurants. It is as gawdy as Las Vegas. We understand that gambling is a problem here in Australia, but it appeared to us that the casino was overwhelmingly patronized by Asians. We had a good, but noisy meal in one of the restaurants in the complex. Our server was from Genova and she was charming and helpful – another opportunity to speak Italian. 12 May 2019 Sunday Busy day! We had breakfast in our room as we had to be ready for an early pickup for our tour. I felt sorry for our driver as it was his first day on the job and some of his customers weren't at the appointed place at the appointed time. Pretty rude. We transferred to our tour bus and Mark both drove and gave us information about all we were to see and do. Our route was into the hills outside of Melbourne, the Dandenong Ranges. The hills are lovely, with a mix of small towns, suburban neighborhoods, and small farms. We stopped for a true Devonshire Tea at one restaurant and watched the cockatoos being fed. They are beautiful, loud, large and hungry.
Next we drove to the station for Puffing Billy, a narrow gauge steam train circa 1900. They almost lost Puffing Billy thanks to the automobile, but managed to save it, thanks to a group of volunteers.
Most of the group went to an excursion of wine tasting, but our tickets were for a tour of the Healesville Sanctuary. We we're glad as this was one of the most interesting and well run sanctuaries we've ever seen. The public isn't allowed into the hospital as they want to release the animals into the wild, so exposure to people must be minimal, but there are many animals that couldn't survive in the wild now, so they are on display. What a variety! Wallabies, kangaroo, wombat, platypus, echidna, possum, koala. The highlight was the birds of prey show with beautiful birds that have been trained to show their flying capabilities. We had a volunteer guide, who is a university student and very knowledgeable, but for some reason she was really hard to understand. We think because she didn't annunciate.
At the end of the tour we had a drive back to Melbourne, we found a less noisy restaurant for dinner, then went back to our room pooped. 13 May 2019 Monday For breakfast we had a canolo and cappuccino at the Italian restaurant where we had dinner last night, a nice change from the typical scrambled eggs and bacon. We met our guide for a walking tour of the alleys (laneways) and arcades of Melbourne. These were interesting as they were at one point nearly abandoned, now are quite lively with a lot of small shops and restaurants.
There are some very lovely buildings in Melbourne.
However, Melbourne is a young city and the predominant architecture is steel and glass. The public places are absolutely ugly!!!! They are supposed to be rich in symbolism, for example steps made of sandstone to represent the desert, but there is little charm. Jumping ahead to dinner, after our tour out to Philip's Island, we sought a restaurant in our hotel complex and ended up again in the casino area. Noisy and garish. Bottom line is we don't like this city. But we had a guided tour to Phillip's Island and that was nice except for the hundreds of Chinese who are loud and rude and unconscious, standing in the middle of the path, blocking traffic.
The prime attraction of Philip's island is the parade of the penguins. Every night at dusk they come ashore and waddle to their nest. They live in the same nest all their lives, so they return home after a couple of days feeding in the ocean. They have a sweet little chirp as they walk along the path. In some cases their nests are in prime real estate that is closer to the water, only a few meters from the edge. Others have nests quite a distance inland and in some cases uphill. Our guide, Shane, said this nightly ritual was one of the two most popular attractions of the state of Victoria, the other being the Great Ocean Road.
Tomorrow we head home. We've barely scratched the surface of this country, it is so large, but so much of it is uninhabitable that if you concentrate on the coastal areas you can pretty much take it all in. There are places we'd like to see more in depth and places we didn't explore, but who knows if we'll ever be able to return It all depends on health and wealth. One of the most surprising things we learned is how very close the Japanese came to successfully invading Australia. They managed to bomb Darwin, got some mini- subs into Sydney Harbour and dropped a bomb on a field in the Port Douglas area, killing a young girl. The driver who took us to the Melbourne airport for our flight home told us the Japanese were so sure they'd take Australia that they had money printed and distributed to their soldiers. He inherited some of the bills from his Grand dad. At the beginning of World War II the Aussies sent troops to Britain, but had to recall them because of the Japanese threat to their homeland. I don't know how many Americans were sent to Australia. I'm under the impression that it was quite a few and many suffered greatly, for example, on a march in Papua New Guinea. I wonder how the Aussies feel about the Japanese now. They are important for tourism. As in the US and Canada, the Chinese are buying property in Australia and the result is increased prices for housing for citizens. They are also sending children to school here but require extensive English language training to be able to keep up. In addition to The Great Ocean Road, we've learned about a train called Gahn, which is supposed to be very relaxing and popular. More research needed. 14 May 2019 Tuesday We were picked up at our hotel and taken to the airport for the start of our trip home. We flew from Melbourne to Sydney and had a bit of a layover. We then boarded a 747 (thank goodness again in Premium Economy) for our flight to San Francisco. Unfortunately, we did not have a direct flight back to Dallas. The layover in San Francisco was not overly long and finally at around 11:00 PM we landed in Dallas. We caught an Uber ride home and got there near midnight. We went right to bed and woke up the next morning about 6:30 and hit it for the day. We will never take another long flight overseas in anything less than Premium Economy.
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