Melbourne

Sydney is a great city. Melbourne is a wonderful city. Sydney is hustle and bustle and noisy. Melbourne is peaceful and quiet and pleasant. We didn't come across as many touristy things to do in Melbourne, but I could live in Melbourne. One big attraction of the city is the Queen Victoria market, accessible by a free tram ride. The market is huge and has tons of goods from food to toys to clothing. We grabbed some presents for the folks back home and had some lunch.

Jack to pet every dog in Australia.

On the tram in Melbourne to the Queen Victoria Market

One of the wonderful products at the market

The highlight of Melbourne for me was the day Laura and I split the kids and took in separate attractions. Laura and Jack went to the zoo while Steven and I took the train and then a two kilometer walk to see the RAAF Museum.

Atop the Eureka Skydeck tower lookout in Melbourne

Butterflies!

Jack at the Melbourne zoo

Waiting on the train back to town

The RAAF museum is located on RAAF Williams (Point Cook). Point Cook was the site of RAAF Academy while it was in operation. Australia consolidated their military academies back in the 80s, but the old dorms and school buildings are still standing and the place has the feel of a service academy. Point Cook is very quiet these days. We saw only a handful of cars and there were no uniformed officers about the place. I would have loved to snap some photos of the old academy, but photography was prohibited away from the museum.

Hoofing it to the museum

Steven at the RAAF museum

Indigenous Aussie trainer

Studing the armament

More modern hardware

We were in slow motion in Melbourne, enjoying the city. We passed the time reading books from the city library, just around the corner from our hotel. We really had a great time.

The alley next to our hotel in Melbourne. Lined with cafes

Jack finds his literal worth in gold

Official card carrying Melbourne library member

After Melbourne we traveled back to Sydney, which seemed particularly loud since we were accustomed to the quiet streets of Melbourne. We spent another day in Sydney before catching our plane back to Wellington.

Flying back to Sydney- yep still hungry, yep- more Krispy Kreme

Atop the Sydney Skytower

The Queen Victoria building (mall) to find more food for the cubs

Once back in New Zealand, we spent the evening in Wellington having dinner and caught "The Man from U.N.C.L.E" at the Roxy to end our fortnight vacation.

A paua burger and hot wings at the Spruce Goose restaurant. We watched surfers in the bay outside the window- in Wellington. Paua is a beautiful blue and iridescent shell and the critter is black.