Our second day in Australia started with a nice walk though the southern parts of Melbourne from Elwood towards the city.
We went through Acland Street (Greetings to Tom, Anna & Otto ;) ) in St. Kilda towards the beachfront. Barbara was impressed by all those bakeries, cake shops and almost german looking butcheries.
From St. Kilda and its Luna Park we headed on to and through Albert Park (where the annual Formula One Australian Grand Prix happens).
We had lunch at the South Melbourne Market, which isn’t as touristic as the Queen Victoria Market. Most people we asked found the later one to be highly overrated.
After strolling along the Yarra River we met a sailing friend of Barbara who moved to Melbourne last year. He took us through the botanic gardens and we sat the better part of the afternoon in a nice shady place near a café. It was 38 degrees after all.
We spent the evening playing Wii, doing all kinds of dancing, boxing and balance exercises.
The weekend wasn’t as hot anymore so we could actually walk around without suffering too much ;) We pretty much spend all of Saturday morning brunching with our nice Couchsurfing hosts Martina and Philipp and we organized a rental car and hostel for Cairns and a flight down to Brisbane. Initially we planned to buy a car and drive all the way from Cairns back to Melbourne, but with all the flooding going on in Queensland that would have meant a detour of hundreds (if not thousands) of kilometers .
In the afternoon Tina and Philipp took us down south to Frankston where we saw the “Creepy Crawlies” exhibition of sand sculptures. The Frankston Pier was almost as windy as we would expect from Wellington, so we felt home right away. ;)
Saturday evening we were invited to the place of a distant relative of mine: Phillip and his lovely wife Liz and their baby daughter Edith. Phillip is the nephew of my uncles partner. (eh?)
Sunday turned out to be rather relaxed. After having breakfast we headed into town and I met a few other Couchsurfers that I knew from Auckland two years ago. Barbara wanted to write some cards and strolled around the city instead. We met back at Federation Square to go to the aquarium, but reconsidered and went into the Australian Center of the Moving Image (ACMI) instead. They had a special Disney exhibition which was well worth going to.
The evening flew by in an instance. We had homemade pizza and Philipp let us search for one of his Geocaches. :)
Today we will be leaving for Cairns.
Without having seen the rest of Australia, Melbourne instantly made it on our list of cities where we could imagine ourselves in a few years.
Hello Sebi, pay attention to the news. It was announced that people leave Brisbane. Actually 15.ooo need to be evacuated, according to the wires here in Germany.
yes thanks. we’re up to date. no worries.