Melbourne from Simon's to Bill and Marilyn's

Here's one of Simon's  pictures - us in the lift

We said farewell to Simon, thanking him for his splendid hospitality and went off to look briefly round Melbourne, which left a much better impression on us than Sydney. Although it is winter here it’s not too bad, yes we have to wrap up a little more as it’s only around 10 to 15⁰C, but it has been quite sunny with largely blue skies, so no complaints.

Melbourne is a vibrant and friendly city with a lot going on. Our Sunday amble allowed us to see it at its best, reasonably warm and sunny, bands playing, street entertainers and a huge range of restaurants to suit all pockets. It’s a well connected city of trams, buses and trains, so we got the No.75 tram from Simon’s to Federation Square and walked from there, having had a lazy start to the day, getting up around 10:00am and heading off around 11:00am after hearing of Simon’s night out that finished around 1:00am.

The converted church containing Simon's house

We barely scratched the surface of the city as we didn’t want to be too late getting to Bill and Marilyn Lingard’s, so we walked along the river on the Southbank and through the Crown Casino, which is an amazing place to see. We haven’t been to Las Vegas and I’m sure that’s much bigger and grander, but it was still good to see the pokie machines (one arm bandit machines to me), roulette and card tables all running and crowded with people at lunchtime on a Sunday! Jackie was tempted to have a go on the $2.50 per go roulette wheel, but decided against it and just watched. I would have had a go with her if I could have remembered Tim Holden’s lucky number (the one he wanted to

Simon and Jackie in the open plan kitchen

Our bedroom with stained glass window and exposed beams

put our winnings on at Steve Jonas’ stag night, got over-ruled by someone else, but his number came up so we would have won a lot of money, but didn’t). Next to us was an Irish guy who’d had a few beers and a handful of chips. He was saying to us that he wanted to put the lot on one number and was saying he fancied red 14, as he said it and before he’d managed to put his chips down the ball fell into….red 14. He reckoned he would have won about $3,000. We apologised for distracting him, but he said ‘no worries’ and proceeded to put it all on another – and lost the lot! We made our excuses and left!

Federation Square, Melbourne

Jackie in front of the tallest building

Another little walk, some lunch, back on the tram to Simon’s to collect the car and then off to Bill and Marilyn’s. I know them from my days at Andantex, they own a smallish company in Melbourne called CGB and they are a distributor of Andantex for our Merobel tension control systems and have been for many years. I came over to Australia in 2009 to help them out at an exhibition in Melbourne and they have been over to the UK to visit Andantex, so we know then quite well. Even though I’ve retired from Andantex now we’ve kept in touch and they generously offered us their spare room at their house, so here we are. Marilyn cooked a splendid roast lamb dinner

Freerunners in Melbourne. The one in the red top is in mid air, jumping from the wall to the bench

last night and today it’s our turn while Bill works and Marilyn visits her father and his ill wife, so we’ll meet up again tonight. We’re here until Thursday morning before heading off to the airport for our SE Asia adventure, so more later…