Day 16 -Down Under

So begins our second leg of the journey. We reluctantly left New Zealand at the crack of dawn (the reluctance applies to both New Zealand AND the crack of dawn) and flew, once again, on a great airline New Zealand Air, to Melbourne. Shuttle bus took us to our hotel in the heart of downtown Melbourne. A little shabby but nice. The bathrooms seem to be the best part of all the places we have stayed so far, even the igloo in Arrowtown.

So we arrive and discover we are here for two nights. We were thinking we had to rush through Melbourne, but we didn't. For 2+ weeks we worried not about how may nights we were where. Time to take charge of our own stuff now. Anyway after the glorious countryside and small towns we acknowledge we really don't like big cities. After all we live in the best of them in the world. So what to do on the second day. The Melbourne information center is great. We picked up a few day tour brochures and booked a trip to see the Blue (or Little, as they call them) Penguins and Koalas at a reserve near the ocean with several stops along the way at different beaches, not to swim (it's quite cold here) but for some sites we will report on tomorrow. If we had realized we had two days here and no days in Adelaide, we probably would have split the difference and spent a day/night in each. (A note to trip planners: when you plan a trip 18 months in advance, check it a few months before you go so you remember where you are going in case you want to change something!!!!)

Tram 

Great Architecture

Of course we wandered around the city for several hours and found it to be very eclectic in it's architecture, some quite modern, some quite traditional, all quite nice. Too many people. Having come from NZ where there are no people, this was culture shock even for us New Yorkers, and all the young people wandering here and there, on the phone, on computers in the hot zones, rushing home from work or out for the evening.

Old Baths

Street Sculpture

Melbourne has a huge Chinatown, about a block from our hotel, we ate lunch there and took half of it back for tomorrow's dinner since we will be coming back from the penguins late. The room has a fridge and a microwave and plates and silverware. With that and the chopsticks we packed with our leftover "take away" we are all a set.

We were going to book an opera for the evening, they are doing La Boheme (Pat said that was a good one for opera novice Maddi), but we were exhausted so we went back to the room, got our computers, marched over to the free internet hotspot, posted our blog and, like many of our other days, were asleep by 9!!!! On the first trip back to the room we did find something that cities offer more than other places. There was a wonderful group set up on the street playing Gypsy Kings music. We listened until they packed up and it was as good as much concert music one might hear.

Great street music

Not the most exciting day of the trip but onward we go.

Oh, and the exchange rate sucks.