Siteseeing Melbourne

Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia. Unlike Sydney which was populated with convicts from the UK, Melbourne's population wanted to be in Australia.....they came seeking gold in the 1850's. The enormous wealth generated by the gold rush led to the construction of grand public buildings...it has the most elaborate Victorian architecture of all Australian cities.

Flinders Street Station (rail terminal)

A drizzling rain greeted us as we headed out the hotel door this morning. We quickly walked the half mile or so to the Queen Victoria Market. This market is open 6 days a week and has about 1,000 stalls that sell fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, meat, and clothing and leather goods as well as a large selection of tourist souvenier type stuff....and the prices are the best we have seen in our travels so far.

Queen Victoria Market

After browsing a bit we headed over to the Old Melbourne Gaol (jail). Between 1845 and 1929 it was the site of 136 executions. We took a self-guided tour of the cells and saw that the conditions of the gaol were pretty grim. There were exhibits that gave accounts of prisioners who were condemned to die at the gaol, accoompanied by their death masks. The most well-known execution was that of Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous bushranger. There was a large crowd present for the execution, most of them to lend their support to a man perceived to be rightfully rebelling against the English-based law and police authorities. The controversy over whether Kelly was hero or villain continues to this day.

Old Melbourne Gaol

Next we participated in the Police Watch House portion of the museum. We got to experience what it is like to be arrested, charged and locked-up inside the City Watch House, which is the holding tank for those charged with a crime until their trial. We had to answer to the Sergeant our name and crime we were charged with (they gave us a profile sheet of a prisoner) and walk through the paces as if we were under arrest, spending a few minutes locked up in a cell. At the end we took our mug shots!

Mug shot while in jail

After our release from jail, we headed over to the Italian Neighborhood to find a place for lunch and then back to the hotel to get ready for our tour of the city. Our travel agents had arranged for a driver to meet us at the airport yesterday and provide us with a city tour. Right on time Rob was waiting outside our hotel door. He drove us around for 3 hours pointing out the highlights of the city...and the drizzling rain had stopped.  An interesting site was at the Brighton Beach, where we saw Brighton Beach Boxes lined up.  These are no more than a garden shed with no electricity or water.  People buy them to use on the beach and to store their beach chairs, etc.  They can cost up to $160,000 each!  I guess that's truly a case of location-location-location.

Brighton Beach Boxes

Dinner tonight was on the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant. The tramcar (old-fashioned streetcar) covers a very scenic route around Central Melbourne while a 5-course dinner is served. This was a fun experience and the food was excellent. One course featured kangaroo, which tastes like beef.

Restaurant inside the Colonial Tramcar