With over 250 km of tracks and nearly 500 trams serving some 1763 stops, Melbourne boasts the World’s largest urban tramway. This being one of the facts relayed to us as we completed a round trip around the main sights of Melbourne city on one of the free trams that operate within the inner city area.
This gave us a good idea of the layout of the city and the location of the attractions we wanted to visit. Melbourne like many big cities is a mixture of new development together with some areas that have seem better days but overall it is a very young city both architecturally and population wise. I’m sure I read somewhere that the average age of the population here was 36 so you can imagine we felt quite old, although most of the natives seemed friendly enough.
Our hotel is part of a large complex which in addition to two hotels houses a conference centre, shops, leisure facilities and a very large casino. We were amazed to see that this was packed with gamblers even before lunchtime.
Alongside the complex runs the Yarra River and this afternoon we had a lovely walk along the river bank.
The city skyline shows the mixture of old and new buildings with the spires of St Pauls cathedral mixing with the high rise blocks.
We made our way along the river towards Alexandra Gardens and Queen Victoria gardens where we expected to see some beautiful trees and plants. Unfortunately these form the location this weekend of the Moomba festival where up to a million visitors are expected and the gardens are now home to a multitude of fairground rides!! I did manage one photo without them.
The weather today was sunny and hot with the temperature this afternoon topping 31C, quite a contrast to the weather we left behind in the UK, sun hats being the order of the day.
Tomorrow we are expecting even higher temperatures as we head off to meet the Hewitts in Packenham.
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