Flight to Melbourne !

Photo: St Kilda beach promenade and peer.

Photo: The oldest Luna Park in the world. The roller coaster is still completely in wood ! The park dates back from the 20's and must have been very modern then !

Yippie, today we fly to Melbourne ! I was becoming a bit bored with Brisbane anyway. The flight takes about 2 hours and I arrive in Melbourne at about 14:30. Luckily Jurg Gehrig my host is there to pick me up from the airport. Again we had clear skies, so I could see how big and outstretched Melbourne is really. Saint Kilda is on the other side of the city, and it takes about an hour driving to get there.

St. Kilda is known to be a more culture, alternative and gay venue. As it is one of the only beaches close to town, they renovated the promenade and peer. They did really a good job with wood platforms. I am actually staying in St Kilda East, some blocks futher away.

Jurg takes me on a afternoon walk to the beach, since it is his day off in the week. Distances here are enormous. To walk just two blocks it takes about half an hour ! Luckily there are trains and trams into the city but not after 00:00. We walk through St Kilda East to the beach. It is a refurbished promenade and actually it is really crowded because the Grand Final of the Ozzie football is in the centre tomorrow. Melbourne is full of beautiful men, you really don't know where to look first...

We get a coffee together at the St Kilda peer, with a lovely view on the skyline of Melbourne. Then we take the tram into the city centre and we get of at Federation Square, which is more or less the heart of the city. It is packed with people for the grand final between two Melbourne football teams : the cats and the hawks.

We then walk further down to the South bank, which is really GREAT ! Finally we even get into the casina, a marble palace, it surprises me that you just can walk in... The hall is fabulous to say the least, I will come back here later and take some pictures as I forgot totake my camera with me.

Back in St Kilda, we pass the dining and shopping streets and we also get a nice view on the Theathre, and the oldest Luna park in the world !