The end of the weekend, dinner just over and the sun is still warm and bright over the camp. I am sure we are a couple of kilos heavier having done little but stuff our faces, mind you anything above the ordinary seems like that.
Yesterday Bob and Janet came over for lunch. We had made a mad dash to the nearest shopping centre about ten kilometres away and bought all the “home cooked” goodies we needed, together with the full range of refreshments possibly required, little of it consumed yesterday and hence we have added to the weight of the van with liquid stores, as well as to our personal frames. The day remained fine and the sun came out during the afternoon; we were glad that we had put up our side awning shades thus making for excellent alfresco dining. Bob had suggested we should put the Red Carpet out for them; instead Chris laid down blue and green tarpaulins to cover the primitive dirt floor.
We slept late this morning and only just caught the train at Sunshine for the city. Being Sunday, the frequency of the trains was much less, so we rushed rather than making our way with decorum, and risking a wait for the next scheduled service. We alighted at the Southern Cross Station, formerly Spencer Street. This railway station has been through several redevelopments since it was initially opened in 1859, more latterly early this century. Apart from being behind schedule and over budget, the station was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Lubetkin Prize for the most outstanding building outside the European Union. It is certainly smarter than the old Flinders Station that we have become familiar with over the past week, but we do question it’s eligibility to any such award. But what would we know?
We walked up William Street to the Vic Market, visited earlier in the week, but today busy with an entirely different clientele. Melbournians far outnumbered tourist customers and we also explored a part of the market we had missed and were alerted to by Janet yesterday; the area where meat, cheese, small goods, baked goods and all manner of other perishable foods in an air-conditioned area and just wonderful. It was close to midday by the time we got there and each butchery stall had their own salesman yelling out the wonders of their particular wares, in great competition to all others doing the same. The prices were excellent however we only considered taking advantage of the well priced meat and fish for a moment; the thought of carrying these around for the rest of the day, quickly heating up, in our backpack did not seem that sensible.
We listened to buskers in the market before heading down Elizabeth Street on foot, down to Federation Square to join throngs of locals enjoying the camaraderie and the street artists. There we pulled our lunch out, leftovers from yesterday and more than we would normally eat on such a day. Two days of over eating!
After lunch we crossed the Yarra River once again, to visit the National Art Gallery. The top floor still required our attention; the galleries containing photographs, Viennese furniture and artefacts from early last century, Pacific Art including a couple of works by our own Colin McCahon which we wouldn’t give you tuppence for, and quite a good collection of watercolours. We both agreed that if one had to omit one floor from a complete visit to the Art Gallery, it would be this one; however we were pleased we had bothered to return and find this out for ourselves.
Along from the Gallery in St Kilda’s Road, the Makers Market was underway, so we mozzied about to see what was on offer. There were some finely crafted goods on sale, as far as this kind of thing goes, including some lovely paintings by an artist with a very foreign name. We were sorry we had no walls to put any acquisition on, and might be even sorrier in the future if his work becomes very sought after, but such is life.
We walked on down to the river’s edge and made our way down river along South Bank, a lovely walkway area lined with thousands of classy restaurants and bars, all full of diners sitting late over their expensive lunches. But then we had sat seven hours over our lunch yesterday, and it did remain under the umbrella of lunch because our guests had turned down our invitation to stay on for dinner, so we were hardly in a position to be critical of others who chose to do the same.
There were masses of folk making their way along in the sunshine as we were, and we finally reached the Exhibition and Convention Centre where the rest of Melbourne was, at the Travel Expo. The Centre is just colossal, apparently over 32,000 square metres and still fairly new, the last of it opened in 2009. We were astounded by the number of people sitting with tour agents booking or seriously researching holidays. Obviously the economy is not as bad as the media makes out after all. The number of people about should not surprise me because Melbourne has almost as many people here as New Zealand has in its entire country.
We crossed back across the river and walked back up along the bank until we reached the Flinders Station, and found that we did not have too long to wait for the next train. It had been another excellent day, the washing was dry and there were enough leftovers to make for any easy dinner. We learned my parents had reached the South Island safely and were ready to set off on their rafting expedition on the Clarence River, that Larissa and her husband had arrived safely back after a week in Sydney and caught up with Kit, learning that his little family were all well and on track for the new baby just weeks away.
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