Places I Love: Melbourne

Today I've been playing around in Photoshop, making collages and stuff.

Melbourne is my favourite of the Australian cities I've been to. 

Right now, it has the Australian Open (tennis is the only sport I like to watch) 

- and blistering heat.

All year round, it has the Yarra River, beautiful buildings, fantastic shops, wonderful food 

- and a sense of humour!

Curvaceous - Thematic Photographic 248

Curvaceous , this week's theme over at Written.Inc, could describe some more of my Australian holidayshots.

Footbridge over the Yarra River. Melbourne, Australia:

Another footbridge. St Kilda, Melbourne:

These were all taken at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne:

Finally, some more curvy-necked swans:

 "My curves are not crazy" ~ Henri Matisse

On the Water... TP 247

Thematic Photographic 247 !!  I've missed a few, I think.

On the water - my favourite place.

Last term holidays I was in Melbourne, one of my favourite cities.

The Yarra River runs through the central city

It was autumn, hence the grey skies. Not too cold though. 

I never seem to have much luck at St Kilda, the famous beachside suburb - for me, the skies are always grey and lowering:

Swan number 36

And a re-post of a late afternoon sky at Seacliff, Adelaide, on the same trip -

Sunday Snapshots

Some more photos from my trip to Australia in April. 

Seacliff, in Adelaide. Late afternoon.

People were out walking, fishing from the pier... this spot is 

very popular, and crowded in the summer

 

 

Visiting the Market

On my recent visit to Melbourne, I deliberately booked a hotel within walking
distance of the Queen Victoria Market.
I don't like going out at night alone in a big city, so I planned to buy supplies
at the market, and enjoy some of the great variety of delicious food available.

Melbourne has large populations of Greeks, Italians, Germans, Lebanese...
a liquorice allsorts of nationalities.
I think they all have food stalls in the deli area of the market!

I enjoy just walking around looking at all of the different choices - so many!
I bought ciabatta bread, still warm. I chose spicy Italian sopressa, German cheese, Greek yoghurt - all made near Melbourne by recent immigrants or second-, third-, ninth-generation Australians. I bought tomatoes, grapes, melon, olives... all so beautiful, so fresh. I dined like royalty every night.

Everybody seems to enjoy the ambiance of the market...

 One of the things I miss about living in a small town is the markets that big cities have, so the Queen Vic market was a highlight of my 2 weeks in Australia.

 

Don't worry, I had plenty of great lunches in fabulous restaurants, thanks to 

friends and relatives. 

But I have to confess I enjoyed my delicious solitary 'picnics'. 

Oh - and (sorry, Aussie mates) I only bought New Zealand wine!!

And - I'm on a diet ....

Thematic Photographic 242: Vegetative Melbourne

Carmi's latest theme suits me. I've just come back from a holiday in Melbourne, Australia,
where I found lots to photograph in the way of growing things. 

Early morning light showed off the trees in the Treasury Gardens beautifully:

I love the Conservatory in the Fitzroy Gardens -
there are always wonderful displays (and it's warm!)

Nearby, Captain Cook's cottage has some spectacular vegetation around it.
There's a statue of the old explorer himself, keeping watch:

On my walkabouts I saw many of Melbourne's old terraced houses:

Along the banks of the Yarra River the trees are beginning to change colour:

Lastly - the produce in the organic hall at the Queen Victoria market
is so fresh that it's practically still growing:

For other people's vegetative musings go here.

“Ideas, like individuals, live and die. They flourish, according to their nature, in one soil or climate and droop in another. They are the vegetation of the mental world.”
~William MacNeile Dixon

Leaving on a Jetplane...

It's school holidays - and I do know when I'll be back again. 

Early (VERY early) on Tuesday morning, I will drive for almost two hours to Auckland airport.

Then it's off to Adelaide for 5 days to see my daughter, my son-in-law and best of all,  my two grandchildren. I can't wait! It's only 3 months since they were here, but at age 2 and 4 they change so quickly. And I've never been to Adelaide before.

Then I'm going to have 5 days on my own in Melbourne, which will be wonderful. Melbourne is my favourite Australian city and I have so many things I want to do there. Mmm Melbourne: great shopping; interesting buildings, both old and new; every sort of cuisine you can think of, and then some; galleries, gardens, and the sea...

This has been a very long, hard term, and I need a rest. 

See you soon!

Thematic Photographic 179 - Glow

What a great theme for this week! I used up a lot of my night pictures for the 

After Dark theme, so these are going to be about glowing light, rather than glowing lights.

The official cat of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, basks in the warm glow of the sunlight coming through the windows. According to our guide, this cat is "famous throughout the world", because President Obama admired and patted it when he visited.

 In Gordion, also in Turkey, one walks through this tunnel into the 

 (possible) tomb of King Midas

In Santa Margharita, on the Italian 'riviera', the rising sun made the houses 

on the hillside opposite my hotel window glow

And in another early morning shot, the sun made the walls of the Vatican City 

a lovely mellow colour

 Closer to home, it was late afternoon sun on the Great Ocean Road coast of Victoria, Australia, which made the cliffsides and standing rocks named The Twelve Apostles a warm shade of glow

 

To see what others have posted for this theme, and maybe to take part, go here.

The One

In response to this week's Thematic Photographic theme, here is my photo of The Hanging Rock, in the state of Victoria in Australia. If you've ever read the novel or seen the movie "Picnic at Hanging Rock", you will know all about this sinister place:

The Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road is described by the Australian Tourist people as one of the world’s most scenic drives. It runs from Geelong (just south-west of Melbourne) in Victoria,  along the southern coast of the state, 243 kilometres - 151 miles - to Allansford, just east of Warrnambool. It has some beautiful views of what can be a rough and wild coast, and is heavily populated with excursion buses and the like for a large part of the year.


Recently I drove the road for the first time, with a friend, and found it a worthwhile and interesting experience. One of the first places to stop at is a popular surfing spot, Bells Beach. They have a big-time surfing carnival there every year, the Ripcurl Pro - it's been held there every Easter since 1960.

There wasn't much of a swell this day - just a few slick black shapes sitting out the back, waiting for some action.  The day was beautifully sunny, with little wind, and quite cold.

It's a stunningly beautiful place, although looking out from the beach towards the south I could totally believe that the next landfall was Antarctica; somehow in spite of the sunshine,it had that bleak desolate beauty down to a fine art:

We had a lunch stop at Apollo Bay (great coffee, yummy falafels and pita bread) and a brief, cold walk on the beach -

Next we headed inland to visit the Otway National park, where we walked around the Treetop Walk:

 This claims to be the longest and tallest elevated walk of its kind in the world. It is 600 metres (about 0.4 miles) long and 35 metres (115 ft) above ground level. I don't like heights at all but I walked around it without minding the bounciness too much!

The best stop of the day was at the 12 Apostles, a group of weathered limestone stacks which has long been a visitor draw on this part of the coast.

By the time we got there, the sun was low, but I was reasonable happy with some of my photos all the same.

All in all it was a lot of fun - a great day to be alive !

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.  

~John Burroughs