Wednesday 13th December – Exploring Melbourne

The hotel does a reasonably priced ‘All you can eat’ style breakfast which includes raisin toast, fruit, yogurt and pancakes, as well as a proper cup of coffee made by reception.  That’s brekkie sorted for the next couple of days.

The minibus was dropped back in time to the airport and we jumped on the transfer bus into the City, which was a bit pricey at $19 each!  Melbourne made up for this by having a free tram around the main loop of the City, which we used to get to the south bank of the river for our 11am cruise, which we had pre-booked on line.  Due to tide times, the man at the quay made a suggestion that we might like to change our boat tour, for no extra cost, to a return trip to Williamstown at 1130am instead.  

This seemed a sensible suggestion and we would still get to see many of the iconic City views as we went. 

 

View of the quay at Williamstown, HMAS Castlemaine on the right

The HMAS Castlemaine, a Minesweeper, was built here and served throughout WWII in the Northern waters of Australia, the Pacific and the China Sea.

At Williamstown we disembarked for an hour’s stroll during which we saw the HMAS Castlemaine and then noticed another Sea Shepherd ship - the Steve Irwin!  If you remember, we had seen the Ocean Warrior ship in Darwin, but now here we were with one of the founding ships right in front of us.  It turns out that Williamstown is the administrative base for Sea Shepherd.  We went in and offered our support through buying some merchandise.

The mighty Steve Irwin

Our ferry took us back to the City for nearly 2pm.  We grabbed some lunch before walking to the Skydeck, the tallest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere. Here we got great 360° views of Melbourne.

View East over parkland towards the Melbourne Cricket Ground

The lake in the centre of this image is in Albert Park, the home of Australia's F1 race

Today was a classic great example of seeing a City in what we have started the consider the two best ways – firstly from a stretch of water and then from somewhere really high up!

We went to find out the cost of catching a tram to Albert Park where the Formula 1 racing circuit is. In Melbourne, you must buy a ‘Myki’ card for $6 each, which you then top up to travel.  As we’re not going to be in the City much longer this seemed a bit steep but you cannot just buy a single trip ticket here so we had to fork out on a Myki each.  We decided to start making our way back to the hotel as my phone estimated it would take about an hour and decided to leave Albert Park for another day after we have collected our camper. 

Incidentally, we later learned that we had just survived the hottest day in Melbourne since January at 37 degrees!!

Having spent a day out without our own wheels, that evening we tried to work out which lifestyle is more expensive – living in camper van and self-catering or having to stay in hotels/cabins and buy drinks and food as we go.  Today, for example, we have spent $70 on food and drink (without eating anything remotely close to a la carte!), $58 on public transport and $74 on tourist activities with $79 on our budget room.  Being a tourist here is pricey…. That’s approximately £170 between the two of us for 24 hours! Ouch....