We hit Melbourne

Declan working the bag in our hotel room.
Declan working the bag in our hotel room.

So, some people come to Melbourne for the shopping. Some people come for the restaurants. We came for the science museum.

We all started the day a bit tired. Our hotel is very new and very cool. Our apartment has a punching bag and a blackboard wall. It also had a serious party in the next room. In fairness it was slightly a culture clash between hip party and family with kids whose bedtime is 9pm. To be less fair it was just bloody noisy.

Anyway after a breakfast of pastries and many, many coffees we set out for the museum. Callum had the helm and did a fine job of navigating us the entire way there via the public transport system.

Scienceworks turned out to be a great example of a science museum. Not our world-beating best, but certainly entertaining and educational. We learnt a lot about lightning, reinforced some stuff on electricity and spotted an error in our Coanda Effect area of expertise. The fact that so many adults were obviously engaged by the various exhibits was a great sign that the museum is doing things right. Overall we came away impressed and a full review on the Museum pages will come.

Rather than retrace our steps on the trains, we organised to be picked up on the river by the ‘ferry’ which turned out to be a lovely old boat where we sat out the back on plastic chairs. The river heading into Melbourne was a  delight. The first part of the trip was through the working port which had us surrounded by container ships and bulk carriers. Then, as we headed further up-river, the working port gently morphed into a gentrified playground of apartments, bars and entertainment complexes. The number of bridges suddenly shot upwards – although their height above the river did not, which had us ducking in not entirely unwarranted fear as we passed beneath them.

Finally we disembarked in the heart of the Southbank and strolled back towards our hotel. Federation Square had comedy shows on the main stage as part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, so we passed some time being entertained by funny Irishmen.

And now with the science museum box ticked, that leaves shopping and restaurants – and we did have plans for one of those. Unfortunately those plans fell foul of a mechanical breakdown. We had planned to have dinner on a tram as it rolled around the streets of Melbourne; but a phone call this afternoon informed us the tram had broken down so dinner was off. (Callum’s suggestion of buying fish and chips and eating them on a commuter tram has been voted down by the rest of us.)

Ah well, we’re in central Melbourne – so I’m sure we’ll find a restaurant somewhere.

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