Melbourne, City of Rain

Really, Melbourne is not very rainy, but October is its rainiest month and this year has been particularly rainy due to a La Nina weather pattern. So, we saw a lot of rain in Melbourne.

We were not super impressed with Melbourne. There is nothing wrong with the city, we just didn't find a lot to love, and the weather likely had had an effect on our feelings.

The city is sort of a mini New York, with lots of skyscrapers, but it does have some cool, old buildings, including its original train station:

The Victoria public library is spectacular, with a main reading room that looks more like a university library:

After a couple of days of bad rain where we spent time at the hotel gym, in museums and basically not seeing a lot, on our third day we finally had some better weather. We took advantage with a long walk through Melbourne's beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens:

Not sure what exactly that is supposed to be, but Shana liked it. We had great views back to the city from the gardens:

From there, it was a short walk to Melbourne Park, where the Austailian Open is contested. Since this is the thing that many people associate Melbourne with, we thought we would get a couple of pictures:

Our final day in Melbourne was even more beautiful, so we continued our exploration of the city, including this monument to the original British founders of the city:

Frankly, given all we have seen about the Aboriginal people of Australia, this momument from 1997 seemed to strike a bit of a discordant note with respect to the colinization of the country. But, the photo does show what a beautiful day it was.

Later, we were walking and hearing bells that we thought were church bells, but it turned out that it was music from the Federation Bells, which were created for the centenial of the founding of the Australian confederation in 1901:

These bells are really cool because anyone can write music for them (they sound three hours a day every day of the year). We had never seen anything quite like this before. Shana was ready to roll out a yoga mat and meditate next to them. 

Then, shortly after seeing the bells, we were walking along the river and we saw a horse. But, it turned out that this was not just any horse. This was Twilight Payment, the wire-to-wire winner of the 2020 Melbourne Cup (as a 25-to-1 underdog!):

So, what is the Melbourne Cup? It is the biggest horse race in Australia, which takes place on the first Tuesday of November (i.e. in two days time). Although the race is big accross the country, it is actually an official holiday here in Melbourne. So, the fact that this horse is a former winner, is actually a really big deal. Twilight Payment is now retired (he was eight when he won the race), but was in town for some promotional photos, and his handlers were super nice, so we got some shots with the former champion:

Nearby where we met Twilight Payment, there was a cool exhibit of Aboriginal art. These are some shields, which can of course be for defense in combat, but are also used for ceremonial purposes. They are a major part of traditional aboriginal art:

The last thing we want to mention about our time in Melbourne is that we reconnected with some speical people we met on a tour in Thailand in 2010 (!). During our time in Phuket, we took a kayaking tour through very narrow caves into hollow islands. On the trip we met a doctor from Melbourne (Dr. Tony) and his daughter Romy, whe was then about to have her bat mitzvah. The rest of the family had skipped the tour because it had been raining horribly that morning, and they decided not to face the weather. As it turned out, the weather cleared and we had a fantastic tour. Since Dr. Tony had some video of us, and we had pictures of them, we exchanged information and later photos/videos. All these years later, we contacted Tony, and met him and Romy, who is now a NICU nurse, for a drink:

It was quite fun catching up with them, and we told them if they are ever in Europe to let us know.

Now, we head out on the road for much of the next week. More to come.

Jeff and Shana