Day 29. Here we are in Melbourne

The gentle rain on the tin roof woke us in Lorne, not the sun. The sun gets up late here in the southern parts of Australia. We were greeted with a visit from a local cockatoo. Evidently this bird is accustomed to this. Later, her mate arrived. Henpecked?

After breakfast Adrienne took a shot to remember this morning by.

We set off for Melbourne via Anglesea where we saw some interesting architecture designed to capture the most of the views. Very clever.

On the way to Torquay we stopped off at Bells Beach. No classic surfing today, just plenty of hopefuls. I wonder how they can get time off at 10am on a Tuesday. The view was fantastic. Then it was off to Melbourne.

Our accommodation is the Cube Apartments in Exploration Lane off La Trobe Street. The picture shows the entrance, and of course, no parking. Now that is another story. We were told there is cheaper parking available in the grounds of a near-by church than the Wilson parking station. We checked with the churchyard parking station, it was full, but we could go in at 3:30pm. What were we to do for the next three hours. Why not use Wilsons. They did advertise $3 per half hour on their hoarding. Well, their cost is $3 for the first half hour, $12 for the first hour, $24 for two hours and $36 for three hours.

We made it back to Wilsons a few minutes after three hours. The cost, $39! Ouch! I suppose the small print did mention “hour or part thereof”. Then it was off to the churchyard. Here, the costs were much more moderate; $12 per day and $6 overnight. The significant times were 6am and 6pm. I told the attendant that I wanted to park the car now and take the car out from 10am tomorrow until around 5pm. The cost, $12 for today (until 6pm), $6 overnight and $12 for tomorrow (from 6am). They don't miss! It looks like I am going to be up for $18 a day.

Adrienne then took me to places she lived in the inner city of Melbourne while studying at RMIT and to RMIT itself. The main building itself is spectacular. We wandered the iconic streets of La Trobe, Lonsdale, Bourke, Collins, Swanston, Flinders. Places about of which I have only heard.

Wandering home down Swanston Street from Flinders Street station we called in for coffee at a place. We took our table; right beside the table where Adrienne's cousin, Damien Callinan was seated. Damien is from Adrienne's mother's line. Damien is well known in comedy and comedy television (Comedy Company).

In all, we had a terrific day.