Last day in Melbourne

We headed off to Melbourne on the train at about 11am, dropped our bags in lockers at Southern Cross Station and caught the free tram to Parliament which is the closest stop to China town for lunch. We ended up at our favourite Thai one called Lemon Bistro that doesn’t look much but it’s been cheap and tasty both times we have tried it. We then headed back to Docklands for a drink and had a quick wander around the massive shopping centre nearby. Good job Jane didn’t see this when we came here with them else we would have lost her for the day.

It was a really nice day as they predicted and the photos always seem so much better when the sky is blue. We treated ourselves to an ice cream; Claire had one scoop of vanilla while big boy had two scoops of chocolate and cherry. Two licks in, the top scoop fell off onto my shirt, I caught it with my other hand, carried it long enough to get in a real mess before throwing the whole lot away and looking for a toilet to clean up in. Wish I had only had one scoop.

We caught the tram back into town stopping at Russell Street so I could go into the Gaol to see where they hung Ned Kelly. It looked just like our Cell Block H with three floors rather than 13. The rooms or cells are very small so they started a new prisoner on the ground floor when they first got there where they were in total solitary not allowed to communicate with anyone else at all. Once they had proved themselves they were moved to the second floor where it was a little more relaxed and they could work everyday and finally to the top floor where they had communal cells. Although there weren’t many, the routines at the prison were regulated by bells. They were allowed to bathe and change their clothes once a week, more if they had two scoops of ice cream and had to wear silence masks when they had their hour a day solitary exercise. They had made a plaster cast of Ned Kelly’s head but I guess that they had shaved off his mammoth beard first. Well at least Mick Jagger had a mammoth beard when he played Ned Kelly in the film. There was also some of the armour that they made from farm machinery.

We were to catch the sky bus back to the airport but the queue was so big we decided on a cab instead. There isn’t much difference in price, the sky bus will cost you $16 each and a cab is $43 on the clock so if there was three or more of you, get the cab. He dropped us off at one end of the airport for us to find out that our check in was at the extreme other end of it so we had a long walk with the bags to find the longest queue we had seen. Luckily we had checked in online and printed out our boarding passes so had only to check in our bags for the hold. Time for a quick drink before jumping onto the plane which seemed to work like clockwork for once, well done Richard and Virgin Blue. Next stop Queensland.