Melbourne in the City

One of the greatest things we learned on our trip to Melbourne was that one of the first settlers was named John Batman, and so the city was originally named Batmania. Batmania! As a result, there's a Batman Avenue, Batman Hill, Batman Street, and Batman Park, among others.





As a city, Melbourne has put a lot of emphasis on the preservation of old buildings. It makes walking around the downtown area really interesting, because there are so many well maintained pieces of 19th century brick work, from cathedrals and churches to old administration buildings, as well as modern architecture from more recent development.


The Royal Exhibition Hall, which used to be the Melbourne city hall.


Inside the old Melbourne gaol, where 130 odd prisoners were executed by hanging including the infamous Ned Kelly. The gaol is now open to the public in a series of exhibits. It was creepy. The guy pictured was one of the tour guides who played in re-enactments.


Outside the jail.


Flinders Railway Station.


From the steps of the Victoria Parliament building.






We went to the docklands to watch the NYE fireworks, but they were rained out by the storm front that you can see moving across this photo. As the evening wore on, the sky got angrier and angrier until it finally opened up with rain and lightning.


Melbournians taking shelter from the rain on NYE.


Chinatown.


The Forum, a venue in town for theatre and bands.


St. Pauls Anglican Cathedral.


Dave, a friend of Mary's, and us with St. Pauls in the background.


Dave and I in the atrium in Fed Square, near the National Gallery of Victoria.


The CBD from the south side of the river.


A bee on a flower in Carlton gardens.


The Fairy Tree in Carlton gardens, a nearly 100 year old carved tree stump covered in little fairies.


The other side of the Fairy Tree, with a somewhat disturbing look at fairies caught in the web of a giant spider...



We also explored the amazing and titanic Melbourne Museum. We spent about 5 hours here and I don't feel like we saw it all. They had a big history of Melbourne exhibit (although strangely, they didn't play up the Batmania angle).


Aboriginal sails and canoes in the museum.


A giant armadillo.


A menagerie of stuffed animals. There were a couple hundred species represented here from around the world.




And even dinosaur bones!