Melbourne Trip: Part 2 We look at things

[xenith]

Day 1, Afternoon


There, it's just after noon. Sister's itinerary requires us to be at the museum at 1 pm. So we're on time. After lunch, we did a bit of a detour to look inside the Shot Tower but the A/V presentation wasn't working. Does it ever work?



And there's not much to look at in there.

Before heading out for the museum, it was decided to have a toilet break. We spend some time looking at the map on the centre directory which didn't see to bear any resemblance to what we could actually see, despite the "You Are Here" arrow.

However looking around, I noticed the exit to Swanston St and, hmmm, the state library was just across the road and that'll have toilets.


Of course, because we there, we had to go and look at the dome (which suitably impressed the kids) and then the exhibition galleries. Each of those three levels is a gallery tha encircles the reading room.


Although the top one is just for viewing. The bottom one has very old books. The middle one is stuff about Victorian history and that's where I want to go so I can piss off imaginary people look at a couple of things. I don't have useful photos. Well, I do have some from two years ago (I wasn't allowed to go last year) but half of those things weren't there or at least I missed them. It was rather a quick visit.

Although it wasn't easy chasing the kids out so we could get to the museum.

"I thought this was the museum?"

"Museums are boring!"


On the way we stopped for a rest, so I took some photos. Strangely enough :) Ate some mandarins. Checked online things. And realised that giving Douglas my water bottle to hold the soft drink he didn't want at lunch time meant I had nothing to drink :(




The plan here was for sister and the kids to check out the Tutankhamen exhibition, while I was wanted to check out the Royal Exhibition Building, if it was open. Which it wasn't. AGAIN.


But finding something to do while the others went to the see the exhibition wasn't a problem :)


Spiders... Those are dead, but they have live ones, and other insects but camera didn't want to take photos of any of them.


Of course I had to go and look at the animal display. Those screens show pictures of the animals and you click on them to find out if they're extinct, endangered, vulnerable or common. Not as easy to guess as you'd think. A lot of animals I couldn't identify were common, and I didn't find any extinct ones.

The other thing I like about their set-up, if you can look at it from three levels. From above, like here. The ground level, which gives you access to the screens


and a middle level balcony (which you can see in the top photo, just right of centre).




Mostly I wandered about the Melbourne gallery and took apparently random photos,


but there was a method to it.


Well, OK, some were random.

Also realised a rather obvious thing about how to approach building a computer in 1825, and some random bits of information about Melbourne (like the population in 1850 was 20,000 and in 1880 was 281,000).


Managed to get a photo of the big red horse. The gallery here has low lighting but it's surrounded by lit cabinets, which reflect off the glass, and there's no surfaces to use as a temporary tripod. So it requires some creative camera use to get anything recognisable.


I think these are clever. They're a recreation of two inner-city cottages from the 1880s. One home to a very poor family, and other slightly better off. I have photos from inside from both this year and last year, which I need to sort out.


After some exchanging of phone messages, I met up with sister again. We rounded up the kids and left, via the gift shop. (Erin's photo. She was trying to take photos while we waited at the cloak room counter, but didn't realise the timer was on.)


Obligatory photo of Exhibition Building and fountain.


Our itinerary required us to leave the museum by 4 pm and spend some time just shopping. However it was only 3 when we left, and my camera and phone were both starting to go flat, so we decided to go back the hotel room for a rest. The free tram stop just at the end of the gardens there, so we headed down to catch it. That one there is going the wrong way and the one we wanted was further up the road. Three of them went past while we walked up to our stop. And none for ages.




When we finally did get on one, it stopped just around the corner and sat there for ages. No idea why.


So I took some photos :)


Around the last corner, finally. I do actually have better photos of some of these buildings from last year but that's not the point.


We walked past this place a lot.


By the time we reached room it was 4 pm. One hour. It would have been quicker to walk. But our feet were tired.

We didn't get much of rest though, before we headed out to do check out the shops, with one less kid than usual. We had some thought about getting pizza for tea, but couldn't find a pizza place. We did find a secondhand bookshop, that sister said afterwards specialised in crime, and found a book on a topic I didn't expect to find useful books about.

Took Erin into Minotaur too, but there were too many books for her to find anything because she doesn't know the names of the authors she reads/wants.

After some more wandering around, through the mall and various arcades and then back towards the hotel, we found a bakery/cafe place that made pizzas. So we took them back to the hotel!

Being as we were all tired, we had an early night too. Our feet and legs all hurt, but a good sleep would fix that. Right?