Monday Aug. 11.…Four Seasons in a Day!

The lanes of Melbourne

I sat in the kitchen having my coffee and breakfast Monday morning watching the weather systems roll in, roll over and roll out  of the area…..I woke up to sun, then there was clouds, then rain, then high winds, then sun then clouds, then rain and wind, then sun (I remembered the time we were camping at the top end of the Queen Charlotte Islands where we sat on the beach and watched the weather systems come in and pass over us and leave, replaced by the next one)……so I decided to get on the train and head into town…..if I couldn’t walk and cache….I would go to a museum or an art gallery, there is plenty to do in Melbourne rain or shine.. 

By the time I got to Federation Square it was sun shining and warm!  Someone said there are sometimes four seasons in a day in Melbourne!  I believe them!  I found the cache that eluded me the other day at the information centre! And then headed over to the GPO and had a hot chocolate at Curt’s workplace. 

I left there near 3:00 and started to head up to Lygon street where I was meeting Trish and Sherryl and some of their friends for dinner and a movie.  Lygon Street, “Little Italy,” is a street of shops and restaurants.  I found another couple of caches along the way and arrived at the theatre before the others.  We decided to eat first and choose the movie while we were eating.  We ate at an Italian restaurant across the street…..I had Veal Parmesan…very yummy.    Curt had sent along a delicious  chocolate for each of us for desert.  We saw Behind the Candelabra, the movie about Liberace  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1291580/ .  I enjoyed it, I haven’t been to a movie in ages.  T & S dropped me off afterwards and invited me to a family dinner on Wednesday……

Lygon Street

 
Tuesday Aug. 12.…Spring is here!

Today was beautiful all day…..I had arranged to meet Jacqueline, caching friend from Vancouver, a former Melbonite  and her son for an afternoon of caching, so I had the whole morning.  When I raised the blind of my bedroom I noticed that there was a large branch lying under the tree on the front boulevard.  I knew they were coming to collect the garbage and the green waste early Wednesday so I got dressed and dragged the branch into the back yard and started to break it up.  I filled the “green waste” and there will be another one filled before I leave…they only pick up every second week.  I also need a handsaw to cut up the main branch.

By 1:30 I was in Flinders Station and my phone rang….Jacqueline was at the zoo and so I headed up to meet them….meeting at an Earthcache.   Got on the train at 2 that should have got me to my destination by 2:17.……at 2:12  in North Melbourne there was an announcement that the train was terminating and we would have to get on a bus…..that led (with the help of a nice women who had been sitting beside me on the train) to a tram ride that took me to the zoo as I got off I could see J. and her son heading to the earth cache site, so I called to her….it was now 2:50!   We found a couple of more caches at the zoo and then got on the tram again that took us to the city.  We cached around the Southbank of the Yarra river and headed to Federation Square.  We parted company about 5:30 as it was getting darker and I headed home for a quiet evening.

Yarra River