Day 2 in Melbourne

Jesika was out the door to work before 6am today so I got up and pottered around until Shanni and Gran got up.
Shanni got us Easter buns and peppermint tea for breakfast.
Then we cranked up the wheel chair, loaded Granny into it and headed off to Forest Hill Chase before 9am.
We spent some time at the Post Office – actually we spent quite some time trying to find it!!
Jolly rabbit warren of a mall!
Posted all our mail and then headed out to the bus stop.
The buses here are great, they have a ramp they flip out for wheel chairs and then they lower the bus down so it is level to push the chair on.
Very easy and the drivers are very very friendly, and most helpful.

Got off at Nunawading to wait for Alex. He appeared on his trusty red stead. Parked it up on the pavement for the day – never be allowed to do that in NZ! Then we caught the train to the city centre. Once again – it is dead easy on the trains. You wait at the front of the train, the driver hops out and puts a ramp in place and then when you get to where you are going to he does it again for you to wheel off.

We wandered across from Flinders St Station to Federation Square.
Quite a cool relaxed sorta place. Shanni spotted a ferris wheel.
She had never been on one before so we took a trip

She thought it was great.
Alex & Gran took pix of us from below in the Square

The views up there were great.

Then Jesika arrived – she had finished work early so followed us in on the next train – we all cruised back across the road

and across bridge – one of the many!
Came across a Bollywood shooting.
It was hilarious.


It appeared that they were shooting a music video – or so some of the local police told us with very amused smirks on their faces

We wandered across another two bridges and around South Bank while we waited for Alex’s family to arrive in from Macedon.

This bridge was pretty cool.
Each glass panel had the name of a country and all the statistics of how many of each ethnic group and from which cities these folk had immigrated to Australia and Victoria.

Yes, she was still talking….

pretty cool bees aren’t they?

We came across this professional street performer.
He was really good – most entertaining.
He got several folk from the audience to assist him. Including Alex and his step-dad Ed.

He had his hands tightly strapped to this pole behind his back by Gemma, the young lady he pulled out of the audience. He then proceeded to twist his way out of it – most grueling to watch!

He was constantly keeping up a very cheeky conversation with/about all who were cruising past.

Then he did the sword swallowing thing.
Look at those girls faces – they are priceless!!!

Wee Meg was also pulled from the audience to assist him. She was so good – he rewarded her with $10 at the end

Then it was up onto the tightrope – which he had Alex, Ed and 4 other guys holding taut.

He walked the tight rope juggling flaming sticks.
A very talented and well rehearsed act.

After this we all went off to The Blue Train Cafe for lunch with Alex’s folks.

We had a lovely time with Ed, Christine and Jack – Alex’s 14yr old bro.
They had to leave immediately after our pizza meal as Christine was flying to Canberra a few hours later.

Jesika & Alex walked us back to the DFO and showed us where to catch the train back.
They headed home as Jesika was really tired.
We wandered through the DFO – I bought a couple of winter jumpers at extremely cheap prices, and then Jackie arrived. I was tired and didn’t feel like doing anymore shopping so we sat down and had chocolate waffles with strawberries to renew our energy levels

We then went walking with Jackie.
Some interesting architecture – great discussions with Shanni over the past few days as to whether the pillars she is seeing are Doric, Ionic or Corinthian influence!! Obviously something we have been learning is sticking in her grey matter!

We waited here for the old, free, around the city tram ride.

The new yucky looking trams and the trains were keeping the noise level high.

While we were doing the city tour we picked up some flyers and found a 25% discount voucher to go up to the top of this…

so we had to do that – up to the very top of the Rialto Towers

the view was magnificent.
We had gone at the right time of the day – the evening light was lovely up there.

It was good to get a perspective of where we had been today and of Melbourne in general.

By this time it was well after rush hour – we had been warned to avoid traveling on the train during then – so Jackie took us back to the station and we got some Japanese takeaways, zipped down to the train and ate our dinner while we zoomed through the gloom towards home.
We had to change to the bus at Nunawading but were well home by soon after 8pm.

Despite the long day Shanni and Granny were still going strong.
I am feeling rather weary – am certainly glad Alex, Jesika & Jackie helped with pushing the wheel chair.
I sat in it while we were up in the tower and Mum was wandering around and decided that I could quite easily swap places – it was very comfortable – maybe more so because I was tired