Melbourne, Victoria

As our ship approached Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, it was shrouded in a mist that turned out to be smoke from local fires. Australia’s original capital, it is a continuous battle with Sydney for supremacy. The rivalry got so bad that the country decided to place the capital elsewhere, in Canberra. George Batman first settled Melbourne as Batmania. He sold plots to settlers despite a treaty he signed with aboriginals. He renamed it Melbourne for the lord who was then Great Britain’s prime minister. It quickly became the 2nd largest city in the British Empire.
The big yearly indigenous festival is called Moomba. The Europeans thought it was a traditional native gathering, but it means “up your ass” in the aboriginal language.
The city has the largest tram system in the world and the parts around the central business district (CBD) are free as is a classic trolley that runs around the perimeter of the CBD. Melbourne’s iconic landmark is the Victorian era Flinders street station with its 13 clocks showing the arrival times for each track, where people meet and show times of each train. We had a delicious lunch with friends from Vancouver in Chinatown at the Shanghai Village Dumpling House. We ended our day in the beautiful State Library of Victoria where an exhibit of master criminal/folk hero Ned Kelly’s armor was on display.Read more