Melbourne

Daylight saving or not, the corellas start early on the Murray. Cacophony doesn’t begin to describe it. Just like kids won’t wake to smoke alarms, they are similarly immune to corellas and so we got to enjoy the dawn chorus all by ourselves. DST meant we still didn’t get away until 9 or after, and with the obligatory drive through the town it wasn’t in any sense an early start.

No wonder Queenslanders get grumpy about the state of our roads. We started about 250km out of Melbourne and even though it was a Monday morning there was very little traffic on the roads. Certainly nothing to justify the broad expanse of smooth flat highways we had to travel. By the time we were half way in we were in high quality dual carriageways, and still no traffic.

Being all of us Melbourne traffic virgins we made full use of the spare time we had up our sleeves. After carefully planning to avoid the Westgate bridge, our GPS gave us two crossings after generously allowing us to pick the wrong lane through a critical intersection.

So finally we made it to the dock and chose from the myriad parking options available (all next to each other) we found one that would allow us to park all day and then attempted to hop a tram from the nearby terminus into town. Not so easy. Can’t pay on the tram and a guy in a wheelchair waved us toward the nearby shop. The poor woman in there was terribly helpful but just rolled her eyes and said it would be expensive. She said it would cost us $70 for the trip into town and suggested a walk would take about 40 minutes to Crown Casino. So walk we did.

Well, lets just say if this is going to be a walking holiday we have a lot of progress to make. Glorious day for it. Southbank, the Yarra, Melbourne Arts Centre, Hamer Hall. Being Queenslanders it took us a while to work out that all of the eating areas were hidden away in buildings too. Thinking about it, it was all too easy to assume that the weather is always glorious but this is Melbourne and relying on outdoor dining for revenue may not be a good strategy.

Back to boarding at 5:30pm. Not surprisingly a lengthy process, but generally well ordered. Amused at the “security” clearance which required me to open the bonnet and boot, stacked solid, while answering questions about the contraband I may have had hidden away. No further intervention.

Onboard I was a little amused at the only real dining options started with an all-you-can-stack buffet for an expected high price. Dinner cost about one third of the cost of the passage, and only the prospect of a calm crossing will hopefully mean we don’t get to enjoy it twice.

The kids have dashed off to the movies to leave us in peace looking out the back of the boat with a setting sun turning Melbourne purple as it recedes into the distance, a full moon rising opposite.