Walking through the Royal Botanic Gardens is an escape from city life. It’s peaceful and quiet with the trees masking the noise from the roads. It was founded in 1846 and covers 38 hectares. As we only had a few hours to explore we followed the path back towards the city. My gallery below shows just a few of the scenes on offer.
I liked these quotes so typed them out to be able read them clearly.
This plant caught my eye, at first from a distance I thought it was a light of some kind.
The photo above is of Guilfoyle’s Volcano. It is a restored reservoir built in 1876 built to look like a volcano. From here you can see panoramic scenes of the city.
Top left, Anthony in the Tacoma Pavilion ; Top right, “Looking out” Bottom, Shrine of Remembrance.
Looking through the trees towards the City skyline
There is a cafe here for lunches and coffees and also many places to sit and have a picnic. The Yarra River is only a short walk away where there are many cafes and restaurants.
This is one of my favourite places for lunch, especially on a sunny day.
Another interesting place to explore, particularly when it’s raining is The National Gallery of Victoria. It is normally free entrance, if there is a special exhibition an entrance fee might be required. There are four floors to explore with over 76,000 works of art to see.
I have collated a gallery of my own below. I framed my favourites.
Bronze Eel Trap Aunty Kim Wandin“Really Good” David Shrigley“Venus” Jeff Koons“Dancing Pumpkin” Yayoi Kusama
Paintings by Nipa Doshi
Tea and coffee salon, Sabo, 1939 Saeki Shunko
Parrots Live Forever Audrey Flack
The Sun Eater Joan Miro
I took the above to show my 7 year old grandson as I think some of his artwork is better!
Photograph titled Irises Robert Mapplethorpe
This last one appealed to me because of the shadow and light thrown across the flowers. Tea and Coffee Salon is my favourite and think it would look excellent hanging in my living room.
If you’re looking for quirky places to eat in Melbourne off the beaten track, we found an excellent French restaurant. Midnight in Paris is situated in Prahran High Street and is also an art gallery. They have live music on Fridays and Saturdays. The service and food are excellent.
Herb Crusted FishSeafood Marinara
Our tasty mains
A sample of the artwork on display
Cozy garden at the back
I was tempted to get up and have a little boogie and danced like no-one was watching! But everyone would have been watching it was so small.
The apartment I had booked for our stay in Melbourne was in St. Kilda, even though it was from Booking.Com, it was just an Air B n B. As we drove into the carpark I realised it was a stacker park and Anthony was concerned that his long car wouldn’t fit! Luckily a lady who had just finished parking her car said she would help guide the car in. It was a very tight and tricky fit and I would definitely never book a place with stacker parking again. She even tested the elevation to check the fit. All the while with Anthony in the driver seat. The apartment itself was fine with a fantastic view from the large balcony. This would be wonderful in summer.
Meeting Archie
We spent the next two days wandering around Melbourne, eating, drinking and shopping.
I wanted to have a look at the Three Fates displayed at The Hellenic Museum in Melbourne. They were painted by Ox King (Steven Nuttall). They are called Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
Clotho (left) chose when and whether a person was to be born, spinning the thread of human life. Lachesis (centre) chose the length of a person’s life and measures the thread. Atropos (right) chose when and how a person would die and cuts the thread.
The mural on my left caught my eye as we walked down the street and I had to backtrack to take the photo. A comic book mural featuring Gordan Ramsay, I noticed at the bottom. The sculpture on the right is titled “Creative Brilliance” by Ngardang Girri Kalat Mimini. It is located outside the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre.
A few from our evenings out wining and dining
Hall’s Gap and The Grampians
I had planned a two day visit, overnight in Ballarat and then onto The Grampians. Anthony said he wanted to experience really cold weather. It looked like his wish would come true as the temperatures were hovering around 0 to 3.
We had to make the most of our time away as it was so short, so on arriving at The Grampians Motel, we checked in and made our way into the picturesque town of Halls Gap. The motel was situated outside of the town and in a beautifully landscaped area. Complete with its own troupes of kangaroos.
I made my way over to a very large one and froze on the spot when he got up and I started walking slowly backwards.
Views from our room
Infinitely more friendly!
We did just a couple of small walks around The Grampians, there are some wonderful trails for the more serious hikers, sadly I’m not one of those.
A zoomed in shot of some climbers up in the rocks on the right.
The Grampians are a range of quartzose sandstone mountains that were a million years in the making. There are five spectacular sandstone ridges running north to south with steep and craggy slopes on the eastern side and gentler slopes to the west. They are the result of earth movements lifting and tilting the hard sandstones to create an impressive landscape of peaks and valleys. Source: The Grampians
I thought at first the markings on the trees above were some kind of symbolic carvings! The patterns are so intricate and look like ancient configurations. It’s just where the bark has fallen off though or maybe some beetle borings.
On our drive back to Melbourne we stopped at a winery in Ararat called Montara. We shared a delicious charcuterie platter and sampled the wines.
As you’ve noticed I do take quite a few selfies, I enjoy posing everyone, so when a stranger offers to take our photo I never object. It’s the awkward moment after, do you check it straightaway, look later or just take your own anyway. I’ve yet to decide how to deal with this. They do generally come out okay but if not you’ve lost that opportunity. Also they take so many! It’s the control freak in me.
All too soon our mini trip away was over. The next day we would be heading over to Sydney. with another overnight stop on the way.
So technically, I didn’t drive from Perth, but flew to Adelaide to meet Anthony who did drive! Also while I’m being upfront here I didn’t do any of the driving, I did a lot of sleeping though. If sleeping was an olympic sport, I would definitely be up for a gold medal.
I arrived shortly before Anthony and checked into the Stamford Grand in Glenelg. We’ve stayed here before, a few years ago and it was a welcome return. I was fortunate enough to be upgraded to a fantastically large room overlooking the ocean.
Glenelg, South Australia
Stamford Grand Hotel, Glenelg, South AustraliaView from our room Grand staircase, Stamford Grand, Glenelg
After I had checked in I went for a walk along the promenade and down the pier. There were quite a few people around considering it was a Tuesday afternoon in winter.
View across the bay from the pierReflections of the sun’s rays
Beautiful sunset from the room
Anthony arrived shortly before sunset and we walked to the marina where there are many restaurants. We chose a tapas place and had an excellent dinner.
After a good night’s rest and a buffet breakfast we set off on our long drive over to St. Kilda in Victoria. It would take approximately 8 hours and 30 minutes, plenty of sleeping time.
Serviceton, Victoria
Anthony is already in Victoria and I’m still in South Australia – “you snooze, you lose”.
We had hoped to have a coffee break here but sadly the cafe had closed it’s doors for good.
One of the great things about driving these long distances is that you get to see all the small country towns. Some aren’t the best, but there are some wonderful surprises along the way. An example is Kaniva, Victoria where we stopped for lunch.
Kaniva, Victoria
I did enjoy the sheep art trail along the road. I looked up the meaning of why there are so many sheep. I found it was to encourage visitors to look closer at the town. There are 46 sheep in all, we definitely didn’t have the time to find them all. Grazing sheep are still very much part of a sustainable agricultural future for this area. They help improve both soil health and plant biodiversity. Source: Kaniva.org
We bought sandwiches and ate at one of the picnic tables, enjoying the winter sun.
Then we were off again to arrive in Melbourne in time for dinner at Laurence and Maddy’s.
The time had come for our visit to Melbourne again. We had planned five days with Laurence and Maddy. They were both still on their Christmas break from work so it meant we could spend every day together.
Our trip didn’t start too well with our late night flight delayed for one hour (at least we were on time!). This meant it would be too late for Laurence to pick us up. When we arrived we found the taxi queue to be too long for us to wait, so decided to book the hotel opposite. Any sensible person would walk across the road and ask for a room, but thinking I was being clever I booked online while on the side of the road. Booking.Com didn’t allow me to book for the day before, so I went ahead and booked for that day, which meant that we couldn’t check in until 3 pm, which I found out when we went to check in! By now it was 2.30 am and we were desperate for a room. Fortunately I managed to get through to Booking.Com and convey my mistake! Hoping that the hotel would waive the cost as we now had to book direct through them. Anyway I didn’t get charged otherwise it would have been a very expensive mistake. Although I had to explain all this to the staff as they kept saying they couldn’t refund me. Lesson: Do not book online at the side of the road.
For the next five days we ate and drank our way around Melbourne’s fine restaurants.
We stayed in a one bedroom apartment just across the road from Laurence and Maddy which was ideal.
It was hot and humid one minute and cold and rainy the next. It’s true what they say about Melbourne – Four seasons in one day.
We had a quick trip to St. Kilda for happy hour followed by dinner at Bistro Thierry – no points for guessing it was French.
MatchingMy Handsome MenEpaule d’Agneau BraiséeBraised RabbitBœuf à la Bourguignonne en croûteTarte Tatin
No trip to Melbourne is complete for Anthony without a shopping day, so it was into town for that.
We had lunch in a very popular Vietnamese restaurant, cocktails on a rooftop bar and dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant.
A moving sculpture
Legacy Anzac Centenary Mural
Rabbit Yin Yang
Her Bar
Bornja Restaurant
The Gang of Four
Thursday it was my day to choose somewhere to go. So we drove to Williamstown around 30 minutes drive from St. Kilda. It was a beautiful sunny day and the beach was packed with umbrellas and cabanas. We had a seafood lunch overlooking the bay and wander around after.
View of Melbourne Skyline
Williamstown was Melbourne’s first port settlement and named after William 1V in 1837. Of course there was an indigenous settlement long before this. The Yalukit-willam clan of the Kulin nation were the first people to call this town home.
Nowadays it is a popular place for family holidays with gorgeous sandy beaches and many restaurants and cafes. It reminded me of an English seaside town, without the weather to go with it though.
We had a dinner at their place one night with Laurence grilling steaks on his Weber.
Too soon and it was our last day and it was pouring! Maddy had mentioned she wanted to see the Triennial exhibition at the National Gallery so we caught a tram to the city for a visit. The exhibition is free and hosts many different exhibitions throughout the year.
Taking photos was allowed so I took a few of the ones that I liked or intrigued me the best!
Larger than life sculptures by Thomas J Price
Walking into the room above, I asked myself what constitutes art? I said to Laurence I could do this, looks easy. To which he answered “aah but that’s the trick to make it look easy but in reality it’s very difficult”. I’m still not sure I would put this on my wall though.
Paintings by Farrokh Mahdavi an Iranian artist. InUntitled,pink is the universal colour of our flesh; it transcends politics, race, nationality, territoriality and gender. Source – NGV
Comedian Maurizio Cattelan – Italian born artist
Well I could definitely do this. My thoughts: ”The Emperor’s New Clothes”. I have cropped this as much as I could but it was in a room with nothing else.
In 1999, Cattelan duct taped his art dealer, Massimo De Carlo, to a wall for the opening of his exhibitionA Perfect Day.
Mound of wollen yarn Real strawberries preserved foreverHanging on for dear lifeA photographer is always trapped behind his lens
I loved the ones above as I found them profound and moving.
Displaced along with members of his immediate family during the Kosovo War (1998–99), Petrit Halilaj’s Very volcanic over this green feather explores his experience as a thirteen-year-old refugee living for more than two years in Kukës II camp in Albania. Art materials were distributed to children at the camp by visiting Italian psychologist Giacomo Poli. Poli encouraged the children to externalise and process their experiences through drawing. Spotting his talent, Poli would much later arrange for Halilaj to attend art school in Italy. Source – NGV
I enjoy looking at old paintings of Royalty and Noblemen and Women and one floor was showing these, although not part of the Triennel exhibition.
Anthony’s family has a family tree dating back to Louis XIV by one of his mistresses and above is Louis XIII. Is there a likeness? He would have to shave his beard to be sure! On that note I will close this lengthy post.
Thanks for joining me on our recent trip to Melbourne!
