Weekly Review – 03/12

Wow where has the year gone? I can’t believe it’s December already and we’ve only got two weeks left in Melbourne.  I’m not sure that I’ll be able to regularly post whilst we’re living on the road but, whenever we have WI-FI, I’ll try to upload a weekly review post!We managed to fit quite a bit in this week although our list is far from empty.  There’s still a few things that have planned or want to do so hopefully we’ll have enough time.  This week we’ve also begun to organise the flat and decide what to send home! Space will be at a premium in our campervan.

Sunday

Starting last Sunday, we decided to explore more of Melbourne’s CBD.  We’d heard that the scaffolding was coming down from the front of Flinders Street Station so we had to see it.  Flinders Street Station is one of the most iconic buildings in Melbourne.  It opened in 1909 and has looked magnificent ever since.  Unfortunately, all of the scaffolding wasn’t down at the sides but the front was right there.  It felt strange that we hadn’t seen this building in real life before as nearly all photos we’d seen of Melbourne included the station.  I included a photo of the full station in my last post if you want to check it out.

Having read a list of the Top 50 things to do in Melbourne, I wanted to check out the 1920’s Nicholas building which was said to be full of small retailers.  It was a very weird place and actually slightly creepy.  Nothing was open but we managed to get a look round quite a few of the floors.  Disappointingly, we later found out that  the building was fully open the next day.[easy-image-collage id=931]

Thursday

We’d been putting off Melbourne Museum for some reason or another but finally we decided to go.  The weather wasn’t great so it was the perfect time to spend the day indoors.  However, before, we made sure we tested out doughnuts from Doughboys.  The Apple Pie and Lemon Meringue Cheesecake doughnuts were pretty impressive!The museum is a natural and cultural history museum.  Normally I get a bit bored in museums and don’t read anything.  Luckily, I didn’t get bored.  The highlights were definitely the huge dinosaur skeletons and the stuffed Australian animals.  I think Taxidermy is the right word.I wondered before we went whether there would be an acknowledgement of the troubled past with those who originally lived here.  There was an aboriginal culture centre which went into detail about the Aboriginals of the state of Victoria.  It was a bit shocking to learn of the numerous massacres by the settlers.  At least we now know why so many places are named Butcher’s Creek.What I didn’t like was realising there was no screen between me and three huge spiders who were sitting there in their massive webs![easy-image-collage id=932]

Friday

Friday was a long day centred around checking up on our new (15 year old) campervan.  I had been worried that there would be some massive issue when we got there.Beforehand we checked out another of Melbourne’s suburbs with brunch at the incredibly named ‘Top Paddock’.  I’d seen this on a map and thought nothing of it until we read that one of their meals had kick-started an Instagram craze here in Melbourne.  We ordered the blueberry and ricotta hotcake which was big enough to share.  Look at how beautiful it is! It tasted great too.Once we got the campervan, low and behold, it wouldn’t start.  At all.  I’m not good with cars but it was clear that the battery was flat.  Half an hour later, I’d started the car using jump leads and one of our two deep cycle batteries in the back.  The campervan drove beautifully as we took it on a little trek to Ikea.As I said above, our time is running out in Melbourne so I’m quickly trying to tick off as many photo opportunities as possible.  There’s no doubt that I’ll miss some photos but I’m already very happy with what I have.  I went out on the night to get a few more city shots with a fellow Fuji shooter that I met a few weeks ago.  We happened to meet another photographer who’d just bought a Fuji camera and we quickly got carried away.  I didn’t get home till 12am and not a drop of alcohol was touched!  I also saw a possum for the first time (Emma was very jealous) and nearly got my head took off by a massive fruit bat!

Saturday

A pretty simple day, we went back to the Crown Entertainment Complex to look at the various pieces of Christmas themed artwork.  All created by Korean artists, the 3D images encourage you to get in the image itself.  Yes there were lots of families around but that didn’t stop us taking a few photos too.Sundays are for resting so that’s exactly how we ended this week.