Melbourne Odyssey Day 2 Melbourne rushing

By the numbers

15.22 kms

20,140 steps

1 museum

 

I woke up after around 5 hours of sleep and didn’t really want to go that far until I had coffee. I didn’t think my room would have a coffee service as I had to go down the road. I knew my tour was around 11am, so I got myself some breakfast and sit down to write up my blog from the night before. As I was typing and listening to the news as I have a TV in my room, I decided to get the ticket up on my phone so that I could see where I was meant to meet. It was just after 9am, and then I seen the time was 10am. I knew then I really had to get running.

 

Quickly setting myself up to leave, I looked in a cupboard beside the bed and found a jug with instant coffee. I never needed to leave the building for coffee apart from food. Shoes were put on, my day bag unzipped with water placed inside and my Myki travel card in my pocket as I bolted out the door. I happen to be on the 2^nd floor with the worlds slowest elevator. I was up the road next to the train station waiting a minute for a tram that arrived on time. I could have either had a 40 min walk or a 20 min tram ride to my destination and I chose a tram. Part way to the destinmation the tram had issues with a door not closing and the tram guys had to check it out. After several minutes the door did close. I was around 3 stops away from Carlton gardens and had to meet at the museum foyer. I got off and tried to powerwalk towards the museum with the Royal Exhibition building in front of me. As I cleared the side of the building, I seen the Melbourne museum and was going to aim for the entry on the other side of the building, but luckily I asked a random official guy where the entrance was. He pointed me in the right direction as I was going to run around the back of the building, where there was no entrance. That would have annoyed me as I was going to be late. I jogged to the museum entrance and found the meeting place with around 6 mins left.

 

I had to put on a vest and a lanyard as I was part of the tour group to explore the Royal Exhibition building, built during the 1880, where it was delivered on time and under budget. Cant say that much at all anymore if every for the government. The first Parliament was opened in the building, the exhibition building still serves its roll by holding exhibitions like Fashion week that was being setup while I was there so we couldn’t wander off. As we were walking to the building one of the ladies started talking to me about some fish that was part of the Melbourne Olympics as she thought I was one of the tour guides, and I was being polite by answering. I told her I was a tourist just like her and laughed. The weather was starting to move in as it was trying to rain. We were escorted into the building as we couldn’t stay on the ground floor due to the workers doing their work on the inside, so we ended up on the Mezzanine, which is the next floor up. There are art works with depictions like of Australian federation and Goddesses. Off hand I cant remember the names of them apart from there are some that are for the seasons, and one for the scales of justice. Serifs I think they were called, something like that. We ended up in the basement, which will be sometime soon the new meeting place for the dome tour, which is what I am on. On the way down there was a hole in the ground that was covered up by the workers, which was actually a shaft for a lift. One lady explained that there are photos in an album that the museum has of the exhibition in 1880, it is leather bound with gold leaf. It is amazing who ends up on these tours.

 

The next step is for us to head up to the dome, which is 120 steps. I follow the people up them and one or two had to stop part way up as they were puffed and I smiled as I passed them. At the top you would get good views of the city, but the rain had decided to set in and drizzle. Everyone were able to take photos of the views of Melbourne since it was the highest point in the city when built. Where the museum now is located that was part of the temporary covered area when the exhibition was on. The Royal Exhibition building has had many uses during its life and that included for the influenza outbreak and even a meeting place for immigrants coming to the country. Once we ended up back at the ground floor the tour was over. I wanted to head to the museum for a coffee and to see dinosaurs as there was a thing about a Triceratops.

 

Gaining entry to the museum meant I could also enjoy a coffee in the museum, I got a snack to eat and a coffee, which I was happy to have as I got to relax. I was happy that the weather wasn’t extremely hot and nothing like it was at home. The museum was interesting as I headed to the dinosaur exhibit first as there were some dinosaurs there including several that I had not seen before like one plant eater with spikes that could have been for defence or for sunning themselves. The Triceratops was an 85% complete skeleton. The Triceratops actually had the name of Horridus and was found in Hell Creek in the US. Somehow Melbourne had the dinosaur. There were a few other finds in the same area as well. I went looking for Phar Lap as Melbourne had the taxidermy hide, National museum has the heart and Wellington has the skeleton. They do have a custom made saddle for the famous horse including the shoes. They did have Bon Scotts jacket on display, but it wasn’t there as there were other things like what was worn at a festival. The history of Melbourne was on display included the original Cobb and Co stage coach that was used in the area, and there was mention the city growing and becoming busy once gold had been found, which meant the facilities like bridges and transport needed to be constructed to keep up, and the government were a little behind on the infrastructure planning in the early days. I could see that it was still raining outside and I eventually ended up out there after my tour of the museum gift shop. Luckily I had my brolly on me.

I was walking back towards where I was staying, but I did look at the transport options and they were something like a 15 min wait. In the rain that is, so I kept on walking. I headed to the Old Melbourne Goal and once I was outside RMIT university, which is at the back of the goal, where Ned Kelly was hanged I checked the options again and it was still a little bit of a wait. I was damp, but happy. I found another bookstore in the Royal Historical society, which I made sure I was there before closing. Had a chat about cursive writing, and was off to Southern Cross station, where I picked up my tickets for the Airshow transport. That is something I will see on the Friday. I dropped off my brolly in my room as I grabbed my raincoat and that meant it had stopped raining, which was weird luck. I checked out several IGA stores for hot food and they all had nothing, so I guess I need the bigger stores instead of the small ones. Just trying to save money on food for dinner as I don’t have the facilities to make food hot. One street I was looking for was the Dame Edna Place. I was expecting more as I had looked it up online, but there wasn’t a picture other than broken lights around Dame Edna street sign. Nearby was a shop I wanted to visit and once I left, I thought about walking the 10 mins towards Flinders street where the nearby ACDC Lane was. I decided against it as I needed food instead and a rest.

 

Walking along Little Collins street, I ended up in a pub. I actually thought it was Monday as it was steak night, but I had the wrong day. Steak was $20 on a Monday, so it was the next best thing and I ended up with a Chicken Parmy with salad and chips. I think I got into the sports bar before it became too busy. I think I was the only one reading a book, but the food did come out pretty quickly. I was satisfied by the food I had that I was able to head back to the room for a nice rest and an early night since I had a pretty late night the day before. Lets not have issues with flights again as that was not very fun at all even if I could handle it.