dwkennedy

Here's the beautiful view from the room. Yep. A mall.

Their version of a river walk. It was nice, but it definitely wasn't like San Antonio. Now that's a river walk.

Sunset.

This is the largest Opal in the world. Weighs in at a whopping 17,700 carats or over 7 pounds.

This is inside Fitzroy Gardens Conservatory that sits inside the largest park in the city.

They change the flowers out every four months. They select flowers from all over the world not just native flowers. I'm glad I too my Zyrtec that morning.

A flower. ( ??? )

Another Flower.

Look! Flowers!.

Just looking out into the park. The sheetmetal wraps, "Possum Guards", you see on the trunks is to keep possums from climbing up the tree and destroying it.

This is Cooks' Cottage. Captain James Cook is the one who 'discovered' Australia for the British to use as a prison colony. While in Australia, he heard that his childhood home was going to be torn down, so he had it shipped to Melbourne in crates and barrels and reassembled where it sits today.

You have to hand it to the Aussie's. They see something, they name it accordingly. This is a huge tree that produces round, purplish figs. Yes, the sign below the tree says it is a Great Australian Tree.

It's legal and regulated in Melbourne. Ironic that the light was red at the time.

It was not warm this day, maybe in the mid to upper 60's.

This one is for the ladies. Don't blame me, I didn't take this one.

From what I gather, this is a predominately Jewish area of town. There were several Jewish bakeries on the right side of the street and Kosher Deli's on the left. Really cool cafe's and clothing stores too.

I just thought this was interesting. Hamburgers, Souvlaki and Schnitzel. hmmmm.

There is actually no way I can make that any more interesting or funny. It's actually a clothing store.

Bedding store.

Window shopping at one of the bakeries. Yes I tried the macaroon on the lower shelf. Good!

Apparently he is alive and doing well down under. He makes me feel like dancin', I wanna dance the night away. Unfortunately it doesn't look like he's coming to the US anytime soon.

No, I am not pointing out their spelling error, or ours. Focus on the truck behind th bush. That huge grill on the front is to protect it from kangaroos and other large animals while driving through the outback.

This is where we had lunch one day. On the streetcar on active lines. It's a tourist thing. Food wasn't too bad, the entertainment was awesome.

The group getting on the mobile diner. We had the car to ourselves, their mistake!!

Here is a shot of our group inside the streetcar. Yep, I'm Capt. Obvious.

My dinner guests (clockwise): Me, Michael, Neil & Janna.

The meal consisted of all the champagne, wine or water you could drink; soda if you wanted it, and a choice of main course. I chose the chicken with mashed yams with a macadamia pesto sauce. It was really quite good. I also had a glass of Port Wine w/ chocolate mousse for desert.

This is Jeff. Jeff isn't a drinker. Jeff had 2 glasses of champagne, 4-5 glasses of wine, and 2 glasses of port in the span of 1-1/2 hours. Jeff needed help getting off of the streetcar, to the bus, to the hotel and to his room. Had it not been for me, Jeff would have busted his face on the sidewalk trying to pick up stuff that fell out of his bag. He fell into me as I was picking up his stuff. Jeff missed the second half of the day. We didn't see Jeff again until the next morning where he thanked the three of us that helped him get to his room and apologized to everyone. Thanks for the entertainment Jeff!

Unfortunately, this is all you are going to get from me about the Penguin Parade. Cameras were not allowed beyond the building. Here is a link explaining what you can see. Penguin Parade.

I quickly took this picture as we were on our way to the aiport heading to Sydney. Yes, that is $1.248 per liter of gas. Estimate 4 liters per gallon and you are looking at $5 a gallon for regular unleaded.