Boomerangs, Bears, Didgeridoos.....

.... and the mother of all thunderstorms! Quite the day in Melbourne today! We left our apartment around 9am and walked the 30 minutes to the huge Queen Victoria Market - an outdoor Mecca of a market with everything from fruit and veggies, jackets and purses, sporting goods, and souvenir trinkets, including... yes you guessed it - boomerangs, koala bears and didgeridoos! Quite a fun place to visit and relieve yourself of a few $$$! We spent a couple of hours there, then walked over to Elizabeth street where we boarded one of the free trams that cover over 250kms of the city! We took the tram down to the river and from there embarked on a 2 hour river cruise down the Yarra River. It was cloudy, but warm today, and the cruise was interesting, but would have been better for photos if the sun was out!

After the cruise, we had some lunch, then walked through the park till we reached the Shrine of Remembrance, a beautiful memorial to the Australian soldiers who served in WW1. They have a short service every day on the half hour, so we decided to stay for that. As the guide was talking, all of a sudden the wind came up, the heavens opened and the ensuing thunder and lightning storm was unbelievable! The rain was going sideways and the thunder was so loud and right above us! We did a little tour of the Shrine after the service, and by then, the rain had let up a bit - luckily, we had packed our rain jackets for the day, so didn’t get too drowned! Heading back to our place, a Dave spotted a Specialized bike shop so we popped in there so he could have a look!

Had a bit of a rest after our busy day, then walked downtown to grab some dinner at a very busy little Greek restaurant. Walked along the river to a night market, which it turned out was all food - think I’m getting the meaning of night markets now, and since the last thing we needed was more food, we headed home to get a good night’s sleep before our next adventure - tomorrow - Sydney!Read more