12 months on ... back to Oz

Now where were we?

It was the 25th February 2019 and we were staying at the home of Diane and Ray and the mischievous, cuddly Archie ...

in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ... unfortunately Diane was not at home as her Mum was not well and Diane was with her in Queensland.

The day (26h Feb) after our wonderful time with Ray at Ballarat Wildlife Park (see that post here), Ray had appointments to keep and we were left to our own devises with Ray's rail cards (equivalent to the Oyster Card) ... so off we went ...

but before that ...

mischievous Archie is just that ... very mischievous, he picks up anything personal lying on the floor, especially in the bedroom and then hides.  I'd forgotten Ray's advice never to leave the bedroom door open and of course he was in there like a bullet, picked up one of my shoes and hid under the bed!  Could we get him out?  We did eventually about 20 minutes later, with an enticing piece of cheese and the promise of a walk by showing him his lead, so we had to take the rascal out before we could leave for the day!

 

Moonee Ponds railway station is just a short walk away and there we caught the regular City Loop into Melbourne

Arriving a few minutes later inside the futuristic Flinders Street station in the city ...

 a far cry from the amazing Victorian facade which is the station building.

We walked down to the River Yarra ... where we saw the helicopter take off to Melbourne's Southbank cutting through Crowne Plaza and the Exhibition Centre to get out of the extreme heat to the DFO (Direct Factory Outlets) on South wharf ... to see the boats ... of course!

The Polly Woodside is a Belfast built (1885) three masted, iron-hulled cargo carrying sailing ship which is said to have circumnavigated the world 17 times

The Boat Builders Yard

 Walking back along the wharf ...

and a couple of photos taken from the train as we travelled back to Moonee Ponds and a rapturous welcome from Archie, after a very interesting day!