Thursday March 9th & Friday March 10th, 2017 - Cities Are Hazardous For the Health of This Blog!

You have all been very patient with my travels in the marvelous natural wonders of this land down under, but when I get to a city I struggle to take care of your photographic curiosity as I am having so much fun catching up and visiting with people. As a result, you're not getting to see much of the usual tourist sites.

Shrine of Remembrance built with some of that Grampians sandstone.

However, I don't want you to miss out entirely, so I grabbed a few pictures around Melbourne for you.

First of all - TRAFFIC! I regret that my opinion of Melbourne roads is even lower than those of Sydney (which is not good). Perhaps it's on par with Miami, except that in Melbourne the freeways just stop and dump you in the city to deal with traffic lights and two lanes and trams and buses! Roads seemed very narrow to me and without my navigation system it would have been rendered almost impossible.

One big difference that Americans would immediately notice is driving on the wrong side of the road. It takes a while to adjust, but I just have to keep reminding myself when in doubt that 'the steering wheel goes in the middle of the road'!

Another is the presence of speed cameras all over the place. It feels like being in a traffic 'police state' with the constant sense of BIG BROTHER watching 24/7! The worst ones are in the country where they have an 'average speed camera'. One gets tagged on the way in and again many kilometres down the road, so one has to be good the whole way! I don't like those. As a result, unlike most of the USA, the traffic is usually going UNDER the speed limit, which is very aggravating! 

They are also pretty strict about enforcing DUI limits, so the pubs have breath testers so you can see if you are under the limits.

A third difference is that one has to go into the 'petrol' station to pay for gas (petrol). In Tasmania they sometimes pumped it for us, but so far on the mainland they are more trusting than the Americans, as one pumps the petrol first, then goes in to pay. No credit cards at the pump so far.

After returning from the Grampians I had to fill time while waiting to rendezvous with a cousin of my mothers. The shock of immersing myself in the busyness of the city felt too much after all the traffic andfollowing my wilderness adventures, so I chose to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens on the Yarra  River, not far from the city center.

It was a very lovely space and viewing the city from a distance was much more attractive for me.

Most of it is planted with exotic species.

A garden for children

But there were some lovely eucalypts there as well.

I also went down to a beach town east of  the city where I used to live, called Bonbeach. My old high school is no longer there and the beach has been developed much more than it was, however, it still had sand and water!

Friday finally saw me sadly saying goodbye to Angus and Judy and I headed east toward Marlo. We had to try a selfie to record the momentous moment of departure! 

 I visited a place we had been to as kids called Lakes Entrance. It appears to have grown enormously and I didn't recognize the area we had been.

Walking bridge crossing the inlet at Lakes Entrance.

 Surf life saving club at Lakes Entrance

Life guard observation box.

More sand and sea!

Finally, I arrived at Marlo in time to catch the tail end of a sunset at the pub and enjoy a very nice scallop dinner.

 It's a good thing the food was good, as the pub was the only open business in town on that Friday evening!