2002/11 Australia trip - Melbourne |
|||
The road towards Melbourne meandered through farming country. Sandie had found a cross-country route that avoided Adelaide and had very little traffic. We joined the Sturt Highway. (Not, not the Stuart Highway. Getting those two confused could lead to some serious misnavigation!)
We passed an emu farm. Emu is very tasty, a bit like liver. A few miles further on we had to dump all our fruit or risk a $2000 fine as we approached the fruit-growing area surrounding the Murray River. This wasn’t much of a hardship for us as we had little left, but the guy who pulled in after us complained that nobody had mentioned this problem when he stocked up with fruit at the last town. Probably not!
 |
Road to Melbourne (4.04) |
 |
|---|
We crossed the Murray River at Renmark. Then we were into Victoria, and we called ahead to Melbourne from Mildura to say that we were going to make it there on schedule. We followed the Calder Highway through Bendigo. This was just a short hop from Melbourne, even a few pieces of motorway to speed us along. We took the toll road through Melbourne and rolled into Mulgrave just after 9 pm.
It was great to see John and Edna again, and catch up on lots of family news. Obviously, the main topic of discussion that evening was the impending wedding. It was also great to sleep in big room again, bigger than 6ft x 5ft anyway. However, it was also sad to be saying goodbye to the wilderness.
Tuesday October 29th
John’s vacation didn’t begin until Wednesday, so we used the Tuesday to get our business settled in Melbourne. Rather than fight the city traffic, we drove to a nearby station and took the train into Flinders Street, really close to our bank on Collins Street. They make a big deal out of their address, so I guess Collins Street must be some kind of status symbol. The city’s roads are unusual. For every two-way street there’s also a one-way lane. So, after Flinders Street, the next road is Flinders Street Lane. I assume the resultant confusion is intended to maintain the locals’ superiority over visitors, particularly those from Sydney.
We met the lady I’d been working with for months to get an Australian bank account set up. She’s an Indian from Fiji, very helpful, but the process of getting cheque cards, and telephone banking, and Internet banking was amazingly lengthy, requiring calls to other parts of the bank, and other procedures for which she had to leave and give us privacy, and others that we needed a witness for. But all the arrangements seem to work so she did a good job. She also helped us get our campervan insurance application off before the cover note expired.
This left us with a couple of hours for recreation, so we crossed the Yarra River and walked along the embankment to the Botanical Gardens on a pleasant sunny afternoon. It’s a pretty view of the city across the river. The lake in the gardens still had its strange mix of big eels and black swans. They must get on well together. By the time we got back to the river, it was full of rowing teams, and the paths were full of coaches on bikes screaming instructions through megaphones to the rowers.
|
Melbourne (16.19) |  |
|---|
Back in the city it was rush hour and the train filled up much like the London trains, but it started from our station so we got a seat.
When we got back, John and Edna took us off to dinner and we met up with Phil and Lynda and the two girls. Caitlyn and Maegan are nice kids, bundles of energy, more than enough to keep Phil busy.