opening hours
The opening times of museums, zoo, … and many other “public” facilities are really bad. Hardly anything opens before 10:00am – very rarely at 9:30am – and everything closed at 5:00pm (often even at 4:30pm and partly at 4:00pm)!
Also the operating hours of the Sightseeingship are quite bad: first starts at 10:30am, last one at 3:00pm (duration one hour) !!!
In any case, these opening times give us stress. Yesterday we were just too late for the last boat and today for the last “long” (2 hours) tour …
Unfortunately, it was similar in New Zealand. One might think that the sidewalks closes at 5:00pm and noone is allowed to use it after that.
Immigration Museum
Here you can learn something about the history of immigrant to australia.
Of course a little bit trought the pink classes, since England has used Australia as a prison first.
For a long time, only whites were allowed to immigrate to australia – from Europe or America only.
Very late it was changed to educated immigrants of all descent. Regardless, some 10.000 Chinese arrived in Australia as a result of the gold rush, and for a long time Melbourne was the largest Chinatown outside of Asia.
Sea Life
After that, we disappeared for a few hours in Sea Life and heard, among other things, a talk about sharks. Every year 8 people are killed by shark attacks. This is little compared to the 12 dead by selfis, 17 dead by vending machines and many 1000 caused by smartphone death (mostly pedestrians, but also other road users).
Note the creative approach to the heating lamps!
There was also a 4D movie with the animals of Ice Age.
Melbourne Star Observation Wheel
Next we do where 2 laps in the Melbourne Star Observation Wheel (whatever that named it this way, it’s the slightly smaller brother of the London Eye). Anyway, the view of Melbourne is very good!
sun procection
The sun bangs relentlessly from the sky. There is even a separate subject in schools called “sun protection”!
Without sunglasses, suncream and hats (only we, not the Aussis) we do not go into the sunshine!
Yarra River boat ride
Upstream, the right – with wooded riverside – side is the more interesting. Here there is the botanical garden and areas with beautiful houses – unfortunately you can only imagine everything through the many trees.
On the left you will find some stadiums for various sports and then only highways.
On the way back you get a good view of the skyline.
After a short break to accommodate more passengers we leave again. Downstream, it’s past the city center and harbor – here you definitely see more!
Some bridges leave little room for our ship …
Passing by the most expensive terraced houses I know. The first row costs about 7 million AU $ (4.5 million Euros) – further back then it will be really cheaper, as you are already with 3 million AU $ here.
In the harbor you can see many container ships.
This part of the journey was by far more interesting.
Melbourne Zoo
It is quite spacious but unfortunately shows relatively few animals – and of many species only one or two animales.
The area is very nice, but the paths are so narrow that you can hardly pass anyone else.
And what are the Aussies doing? Because there do not seem to be enough poisonous animals on your continent, they have imported some from the rest of the world to show them at the zoo!
Melbourne Museum
It roughly consists of four departments: Aboriginal, Current Australia, Science (Earth History, Dinosaurs, Insects and Animals) and the human body and mind.
Even if you do not see it in the pictures, there are many interactive media and videos. It takes probably a day or more to see the whole museum.