On to Melbourne

Shot Gun Tower, Melbourne

We flew from Launceston to Melbourne. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman who ‘purchased’ land from the Aborigines for a village. The town grew tremendously after gold was discovered in the 1850s. The city has the most Victorian buildings in the world, next to London. Melbourne became the Australia's major financial center. Today, Melbourne has a population of about 4 million. For the last 5 years, Melbourne was voted the world’s most livable city. It’s easy to understand with lots of parks, sports complexes and trams running everywhere through town.

After lunch we took a brief walking tour around our hotel, the Somerset, right in the heart of downtown. The Somerset has an apartment style room including a washer/dryer for laundry. The city is an interesting mixture of historic buildings and brand new towers. For example, the Shot Gun Tower (now a museum) is housed inside a shopping center. The tower was used to turn led to musket shot by dropping the lead from the 50 foot tower. We toured the Victoria library with its LaTrobe reading room. Then headed down to Federation Square with the 1910 Railway station across the street. Our group expanded to 15 today, 5 men and 11 women. Wayne hosted a wine and cheese party in his room and then we headed to dinner. I had kangaroo for dinner – it tasted like sweet beef. 

Flinders Railway Station