SAILING, SAILING, OVER THE BOUNDING MAIN.....TOWARDS MELBOURNE- February 8th

Sailing, sailing, it certainly beats getting off and on a plane and packing and unpacking - man, there is lots of water out here! All this water makes you look forward to land.  Unfortunately visits are too short and I never seem to get over the feeling that the land is moving like the ship.

We arrived in Melbourne, 2nd largest city in Australia and perhaps prettier than Sydney - just as vibrant and clean.  More than 4 million live in the greater metro area. The architecture is amazing and standing beside a church in downtown Melbourne built in the 1800's you turn your head just a little and a crazy quilt of modern architecture with strong, angled lines greets you. There is no overt signs of the Aboriginal people in Melbourne. and we saw only a handful of Aborigines in the city.  There are some gift stores and the museum with art from these people and yet  this area was an important meeting place for the clans and a vital source of food and water.

and this is right across the street

The city is thronged with people. It is not that this picture was taken at noon -- it's just this busy.

Downtown there are so many places to eat it is ridiculous. In the hundreds within a 4 block area. Shooting off the main streets are small alleys -  hardly wide enough for a car, just small restaurants offering everything from soup to nuts.  Each restaurant has different items for sale - There are a great many sushi restaurants and the sushi looks fantastic! In most restaurants you take your food outside to eat.  Few have eat-in seating.

Here is the soup store, Len didn't take a picture of the nut store!

We even gave the birds a snack!

They go out of their way to discourage smoking - Here is a photo of a cigarette store.  People in Melbourne and Sydney smoke as much as anywhere else. All the cigarettes are all covered up!

The cruise line tries to offer a couple of special events each month for the people who are doing the entire journey - about 60 people.  They drove us about 40 minutes away to a huge estate where they hosted a dinner and entertainment.  The estate is fabulous - it's called Werribee Park, much like Viscaya with more land.

The temp. was perfect too while we had a chance to walk around the house and grounds.

They gave s a chance to wander around the home and grounds whilst the staff served champagne and awful hor's douvres,

They provided dinner and entertainment.  2 opera singers and a young girls choral group.  The female opera singer was pretty  good, the male opera singer used crib notes to follow the words but the young girls choral group was great.  The food was mediocre but the best part was when we got back to the room Marina had a platter of sandwiches, cakes, fruit and crudites waiting for us!

All in all it was a nice day.  -  We are once again at sea for one day before our visit to Adelaide.