Pearls of Wisdom?

29th January, Wednesday. Lazy morning. Walked around St Kilda and along the pier.

Beyond the pier is the harbour wall and right on the end section, there is a small colony of Little Penguins, like the ones on Phillip Island that we saw in November. Access is not allowed to see them, so we could not get far past the pier.

There was a man fishing off the harbour wall, with no fishing rods, just four large spools of line that he threw the line in from and waited for something to bite. Like they said in the film City Slickers: “To say how leathery he was. He was like a saddlebag with eyes.” We later met couple of guys fishing normally, with rods and spent a couple of hours using their fishing gear and chatting. Caught a small snapper fish.

We looked at Luna Park. An amusement park similar to Dreamland in Margate, England. Compared to all the stunning things we had seen on our travels, this seemed rather run-down and a bit tacky. We had read that St Kilda used to have a reputation as a bit of a run-down, drug users hangout but with the exception of this little area, I thought it was pretty clean and similar to some of our seaside towns in the UK but with much better weather.

30th January, Thursday. Into Melbourne this morning.

Had a quick look in Chinatown, where we had Pearl Tea (Bubble Tea). A tasty iced drink, with flavoured gelatin ‘pearls’ in.

Pearl Tea

They give you a large diameter straw to drink with and it’s like a puzzle game, trying to suck up the gelatin balls before you run out of drink. Here, unlike what your mother used to tell you, you are allowed to play with your food!

Australian Aboriginal Flag

Then we went to the museum. Well, I call it a museum… seems Australian history only goes back to 1770. Although the indigenous Aborigines were there for thousands of years before, that doesn’t seem to count. It looked like most museums exhibits would not look out of place in your Granny’s flat. Old Oxo tins, chest of drawers, upright piano and sewing boxes etc. I am probably wrong but Melbourne Museum looked just as disappointing, so we gave it a miss.

Went back to Lygon St, to where we had the pie last week. Had a different pie. Just as good? Not quite.

We caught the free, old City Circle Tram to the Botanical Gardens.

Here I had to fight against a tide of pointless runners and cyclists coming at me from all directions. Nearly as pointless as those that chase after a ball! Get a life, stop runnin’ and ‘ave a pie. (Sorry for the rant, just never seen the point in it all). The Botanical Gardens didn’t seem as good as the ones in Sydney but we only saw a small part of it.

It was the night before Chinese New Year and things were getting started early. Dragons dancing, drummers drumming and street food everywhere along the riverside.

We got back to St Kilda to find a pre-festival, festival going on.

In 2 days time, there is a gay pride parade, that will be the main event. Nothing wrong with being gay, just a variation in the genetic code, but I can’t understand why the need to make such a spectacle of it? Perhaps we should have straight pride days!