From Sydney to Melbourne

The weather from Monday held over through all of Tuesday. First it rained, then it looked like the ceiling would lift a bit, then it seemed the cars had their wipers on intermittent, then it would start raining again...at least we got the blog completely up to date at that point.

It wasn't until about 3:30 in the afternoon that we decided to chance going out to the area of the Lowenbrau one more time. Monica had brought her packable rain coat along, but Larry needed a bit more than just his jacket and hat, so he borrowed a large umbrella from the bell desk, and off we went.

All the meals at the Lowenbrau seem to be huge!
This was Larry's Jaegerpfanne - veal slices
with cheese spaetzle

Although it was something of a disappointment that we couldn't wander about a little more, it wasn't nearly as bad for us as it was for those people on the cruise ships we had seen on a daily basis. Most of them were doing turnaround in Sydney, so anyone who couldn't stay had lousy weather to get off the ship, and anyone who had come in a day early had had no chance to explore. We could only hope that the forecast would improve once we left.

Wednesday morning started out just as damp and dreary as Tuesday, but we were headed to the airport before 10:00 so it didn't really matter. After an easy check-in we sat in the business class lounge until our flight was called and then had an uneventful flight to Melbourne. It isn't until you compare maps and see that Australia is the same size as the continental US that you realize the distances between cities. The flight from Sydney to Melbourne is a little over an hour - about the same distance as between Toronto and Montreal or Toronto and New York.

Once we arrived in Melbourne, we just had to find the Tauck representative and then let him take care of us from then on. We transferred to the Langham with one other couple on our tour who are from Atlanta.

It didn't take long to get checked in, and then we started our usual wander about. We remembered a little bit from our previous visit - which we pinned down as 2006 - and since Melbourne is so nicely laid out in a grid pattern it was actually quite easy to reorient ourselves. Having our hotel right along the bank of the Yarra River didn't hurt, either.  The Langham Hotel is located along the Southbank Promenade, so there were lots of restaurants to choose from for dinner. Here are a few photos from our afternoon:

The lobby of the Langham Hotel

Our room. It overlooks the pool
area, which in turn overlooks the river

At the Alexandra Gardens.
Melbourne is known as Australia's garden
city; this is only one of many

The foyer of the old Commercial Bank Building.
Now it is an office building

Can't resist the food shots!!! Monica's mussels appetizer
at the Waterfront Restaurant

      

Thursday was still free to explore some more before the initial tour group get-together at 6:00. We'll leave that and Friday for the next post.