Arrival at Melbourne, Friday 24th April 2009

Well, here we are, arriving at a very unearthly hour (04:35) at Melbourne Airport, and George was kindly waiting for us, having also got up at a very unearthly hour to meet us:

And then we got back to George & Wanda's home, and Wanda got back from work, so here we all are:

Day - 4, Saturday 25th April 2009

After a good long sleep, we woke to a nice bright day and our ever hospitable host offering anything we could possibly want for breakfast.

But as Charlie had woken a bit later than intended, there wasn't as much time as expected, so we sort of rushed off for family gathering no.1: the Lyne clan.

From left to right, we think these are:
Alan (4th cousin to Charlie), Zoe, Craig, Barbara, Phillip, Ron (also 4th cousin to Charlie), Jan, Cody, Jo, Rachael, Steve, Sharon, Helen & Charlie.

A very happy gathering of many Lynes, Duffs, and Collins's, all related to Alan/Jo and Ron/Jan, and all of us related (either by blood or marriage) to gt.gt.gt.gt grandfather Richard Lyne (1760 – 1834).

Particular thanks to Jan & Ron for hosting the event, including all the catering, and to Sharon for organising it and bringing her immediate family all the way from the outback :-) .

Ron kindly ran us back to Wanda & George's, where we enjoyed fish & chips – the Oz version – for supper, with pudding:

Deep fried Mars Bar

Deep Fried Mars Bar. Another tick off the 100-Things-You-Must-Do-At-Least-Once-Before-You-Die list!

Day - 5, Sunday 26th April 2009

Visiting more of Barbara's family today, across the other side of Melbourne (or Melbun as we now know is the correct way to pronounce it).

Here's Barbara in between her two cousins, Yvonne and Wanda:

And here's most of the gathering, though we didn't manage to catch the youngsters. Left to right there's George & Charlie, then Yvonne, Barbara, Wanda and Yvonne's husband, Chris.

Day - 6, Monday 27th April 2009

Today we do Melbun!

But first, we haven't described the Dziedzic (George & Wanda's) estate yet, so a quick tour: it's a biggish bungalow, at least that's what we'd call it, no, I'm wrong, it's a brick-veneer house, sorry ....

and there's a very impressive cactus out back:

That's just the top few feet, I think it's taller than my pole! And it's producing hundreds of flowers, each of which flowers just the once and then dies.

Off to Melbun on the train:

Forty minutes later we arrive at Flinders St. Station, busy, busy, busy, trams, traffic, impressive Victorian architecture:

I missed a bit. We 'did' the cathedral of St. Paul's while we were near the station. It was big and glowing in the autumnal sunshine, and (unusually for an Australian church/cathedral) has thirteen bells, which Barbara won't get to ring as practice night is Wednesday, by which time she'll be ringing at St. James's in Christchurch (that;s New Zealand b.t.w.). Here's a nice piccy of some of the glowing artwork in St. Paul's:

We go across the road to the ....

where we find details of the free tourist shuttle bus ....

and we go to the Observatory:

and Botanical Gardens which have trees. Some of the trees go something like, trunk, trunk, trunk, trunk, trunk, trunk, trunk, leaves ....

This was a fat one, there were also very skinny ones that did trunk x 50, leaves!

And there were lots of other nice things, black swans, things that looked like moorhens, grebes & herons but weren't, and all sorts of interesting plants and trees, but I ran out of batteries for the camera, so you'll just have to come and see for yourselves!

I then took loads of video, but I don't know how to put that on the blog. However, after getting back on the free shuttle, I was getting seriously impressed with one particular tall building, and on further enquiry, it seemed that it was mostly offices, but did have a viewing level on the 88th floor.

So George & I jumped off the bus and left the girls to fend for themselves - I had Barbara's train ticket home and all our cash, so we reckoned that they probably wouldn't go home without us.

After a short walk, we got to the bottom of the aforesaid tower, the 88th floor of which is apparently the highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere, at 984 ft (300m). Interestingly, the direct lifts to that floor take just 38 seconds to get there -breathtaking!

So, up we went, and indeed the views were stunning. Melbun stretched as far as we could see, it being a rather cloudy/hazy day, but little rays of sun would occasionally puncture the grey vista and illuminate areas such as the marina out in the bay, where a myriad of tiny yachts were positively glowing.

It's not ever so obvious in the photo, but there's a triangular appendage near the top of the building, and at the top of that is where the 88th floor is, and there's a small area there where you can sit with a coffee. If you get right up close to the window, you can look absolutely vertically downwards for nearly 1,000 feet, as there is nothing beneath you at that point, because the rest of the building is behind you - scary stuff.

And if you want to spend a bit more money, you can experience "The Edge". It's a 3m glass cube with electronically controlled opaque glass that starts off inside the building. You get in and it slowly moves from inside the building to outside the building (984 ft up) and then they change the glass from opaque to transparent, so you're standing there in this glass cube with a rather big drop below, sky above, and the rest of Melbun all around.

But you couldn't take a camera in, so I didn't bother, the coffee was exciting enough.

Time for bed. Our last day in Melbun tomorrow, must pack.

Day - 7 Tuesday 28th April 2009

Another day out, courtesey of Wanda & George, to:

We got to say “aaah” at a koala:

And even found a 'roo that was awake:

And Barbara even got to pat the infamous bottom of a wombat (albeit a stuffed one)!

And then after seeing many other nice animals and birds, and a particularly impressive birds of prey display, we had to go home (Wanda & George's) to pack in preparation for yet another family gathering and our imminent departure for new shores.

Here we are with kind hosts, Kim & Don Just, a 4th cousin on the Lyne side (please correct me if I'm wrong Don).