Brisbane & Melbourne 2010

Brisbane & Melbourne - 2010

Our main holiday in 2010 was to Singapore and Australia. First stop Singapore for a couple of nights before flying down to Brisbane to stay with Rhondda, then Melbourne to stay with Hillie and Dave before taking ourselves off from Melbourne to Sydney, stopping at various places en route. As with earlier years, we've split the pages to make it easier to load them in.

Singapore

Brisbane & Melbourne

Metung & Tilba Tilba

Jervis Bay & Sydney

This page is split into various sections in case you want to jump straight to one or the other:

Australia Zoo

Family

Melbourne

The Briars Park

We arrived safe and sound in Brisbane and Rhondda was there to meet us and take us home. Jean was staying with her as well so we had two for the price of one! Tuesday afternoon we visited Judy and her family. No pictures of the humans in Judy's family but the animals were OK about being photographed.

There were four dogs altogether, 3 small ones and one bigger one. The small ones were really friendly.

The cat kind of tolerated our presence - it's a Ragdoll cat.

That was it on a rainy day in Brisbane - the rest of our time was spent eating, chatting, catching up with the news and dozing.

Wednesday came along and the rain had stopped so off we went to the Australia Zoo. Established by Steve Irwin and his family, it covers 70 acres and has a good range of animals, all with plenty of room to roam, fly etc.

The koalas were more active than I've seen them before. The one on the left was having a nice cuddle and the one middle centre had a baby in her pouch so that was good to see.

There were a few Wombats around, this is Dad (Tonka). Baby was with the keeper while Mum had a rest.

These cheeky otters were being fed when we arrived in their area - mussels for tea tonight.

As well as the animals there was a good variety of bird life, some of which was flying free which was good to see.

There were loads of Scrub Turkeys around and these signs told us why they were doing so much scrabbling in the leaves.

Australian White Ibis

jabiru
Jabiru (Black-necked Stork)

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin

Australian King Parrot

Chestnut-breasted Mannikin

There were also a few reptiles around the place. No surprise there as Steve Irwin was known as the Croc Hunter.

Really glad we don't get these in our rivers at home

This Komodo Dragon was not looking very dragon like - too busy relaxing.

These Water Dragons were free roaming. Mating season so the males (here and far right) were doing lots of posturing and nodding in an attempt to attract a female.

This female wasn't at all interested in the chap on the left so she didn't nod back!

This is a Rhinocerous Iguana - perhaps not the prettiest of the animals in the zoo.

Dinner was out in Brisbane with Rhondda, Jean and Dean. It was lovely to see him again. Unfortunately we forgot to take our camera so no photos of Dean this time around.

Thursday was spent at Glenn and Nat's meeting the new additions to the family since last time we were here - Cooper and Isabel. At the time of our visit, Cooper was almost 3 years old and Isabelle was 2 months. Cooper was none too keen on Jonathon's flash gun so no posed family photo but plenty of "action" shots.

Glenn & Nat live on the Gold Coast so had a quick call in to check the ocean was still there en route - it was.

Back to Rhondda's for yummy lasagne and to pack ready to head off for Melbourne tomorrow. Norbert note : BNE - MEL, 737-400 but you'll have to take Jonathon's word for it because I was asleep before the safety briefing began!

As we'd not been to Melbourne before, we spent the first day strolling around the city with Hillie and Dave. It's a very cultural city with plenty of art work around to admire and lots of interesting architecture.

We went in on the train - very easy from their house. Seems strange having Burnley next to Richmond but we still got to where we needed to be.

tram

One of the initial thoughts was to go on a city tram ride but we walked everywhere instead because the rain held off (most of the time at least).

Some familiar names were next to some that weren't familiar at all!

There was some traditional architecture ...

... and some that was very modern and green.

There was a big contrast between the narrow alleyways and the wide shopping avenues and more coffee shops than you can shake a stick at (Jonathon heaven).

Bourke Street

etview

We went to the Skydeck 88 at the Eureka Tower to get some aerial views. With such a clear day the views were lovely (see below for the difference when the rain arrived).

The top of the tower can flex up to 600mm in high winds but two 300k litre water tanks on level 90 & 91 prevent any excess swaying.

What a difference the rain made when it arrived - thankfully short shower only.

Hillie and Dave went out to "The Edge". The Edge is a glass cube that projects 3 metres out of the building, 88 floors (300 metres) up. You can see down below through a glass floor.

They came out alive and safe!

They are sports mad in Melbourne so there are a few sports venues in the photo on the left. The main venue as far as any cricket fan is concerned is the MCG:

Melbourne Cricket Ground is also known as "The G". The largest sporting crowd there was 121,696 - imagine all those people!

The venue in the photo above with the fancy edges is known as the Not Round Ground - for soccer and rugby rather than Aussie Rules.

Federation Square (below) has been voted in the top ten ugliest architecture in the world - it's not that bad!

The Travellers Bridge was really interesting, showing various different types and timings of immigration. There were several sculptures along the length of the bridge and the info board at the start of the bridge explained them all.

The laying of the first stone for the first St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral in 1850 coincided with the first stone of St. Patrick's Catholic Cathedral on the other side of town. To compensate for it being on flat ground, the designers, James and Charles Webb, were instructed to make the steeples particularly high. In 1880 construction began on the second (and remaining) St. Paul's Cathedral - left.

And now for some of the street art ....

Cow Up A Tree by John Kelly

Gayip - at one end of the white bridge above.

Insects crawling on the Eureka Tower

I.O.U. (but from the other side U.O.I.)

Signature Work by Emily Floyd

There was lots more but we only had one day so couldn't possibly photograph them all.

A quick trip back home for tea then off we went again, back up to the Skydeck for night time viewing.

It really was on the 88th floor!

Next day was more in the country. First stop to deliver Dave to the start of his 100km cycle race. This was the "Around the Bay in a Day" charity bike ride. You could choose 250 km, 210 km, 100 km or 50 km - Dave chose the 100km - we dropped him off and had breakfast in Sorrento whilst watching several thousand bikes go past. He did well and arrived home at exactly the same time as we did in the afternoon.

We decided to go to The Briars Park for a walk around with our cameras as it was on the way home and looked interesting. What a lovely place it was too.

The first European settler, Captain James Reid, arrived in 1840 and built a large hut of wattle and daub on the site. Before that (for at least 40,000 years) the Boonerwrung tribe loved in the area as part of their tribal territory, which extended from the Werribee Rover to Cape Liptrap and north to the Dandenong Ranges

It provides a combination of Wetland and Woodland walks. Although we looked in every possible koala type tree, we didn't see any but we did see lots of pretty birds instead (apologies for the furriness of some of the photos and for the fact that a few of them aren't named).

birds
New Holland Honeyeaters

Eastern Yellow Robin

There were a couple of hides on site. Possum has clearly decided that this one is a good place to live - perhaps because of all the rain they've had recently.

wheelchair warning

If you look at the picture on the left, you can see why!

Hillie searching for koalas

Lots of ant holes around

Magpies look back to front compared to those in England.

Of course, there were some plants to admire as well.

From there we drove a bit closer to home - to Mount Martha for lunch and a look at the beach.

The Galah (right) was wandering about in the car park. Hillie told us they are as common as our pigeons!

Back home to sort out photos and get ready for dinner. Monday we had to leave Melbourne and start heading east, taking a couple of weeks to drive to Sydney.