In the afternoon, we were booked on a half-day tour which started with a city tour and then on to Grant's Reserve in the Blue Dandenongs mountain range. We were told it was called "Blue" because the mist of eucalyptus oil from the trees created a distinct blue haze. Perhaps, but it all looked gray to us. From up in the mountains, we could look down towards Melbourne and see a water reservoir that was at record low levels. Melbourne was just about to go onto water use restrictions...
The forest was interesting, especially for the brightly colored parrots that would come looking for handouts (conveniently provided by the bus drivers.) Many of the tourists didn't seem to understand that if they jump around and get too close to the birds, that the birds would fly away. During a quiet moment, when most of the others had wandered off, Leslie tried attracting a parrot (perhaps a "crimson rosella"?) and was quite successful...
At this stop we were fed more Billy Tea and "Lamington Cakes", which I can best describe as Hostess Twinkies with coconut topping.
The morning's TV news show on channel Nine was being hosted from Federation Square, and they had interviewed the mural artist, so I thought the portrait was somewhere near there. But where? I asked in the tourist center at the square - surely they knew? The first staffer I asked looked at me as if I had two heads. He asked another staffer who said that she had heard of it, but didn't know its location. She pointed to a map location in the city's court district and said it was somewhere in there - maybe. So we walked to that area, and looked around. Couldn't find it. We asked various people - most had never heard of it. Finally, someone told us it was further down the street, on the side of some building there. But it wasn't. In the end, we never found it, but later learned that we had come very close in some of our wanderings.
All in all, we enjoyed our time in Melbourne.
© 2002 Steve Lionel - - Home