Leaving first thing Friday morning, we eventually met Andy at Spencer St Station at lunchtime. A quick bite to eat, then dumping our bags at Andy's apartment we headed off on the train to visit Nanji (Andy's nana) for afternoon tea. All the great grandchildren love to play with Nanji's collection of singing christmas toys - there's a chicken, duck and 2 dogs all moving to different christmas tunes! Our return trip on the way back to the apartment enabled us to catch a tram. In one day we had traveled by car, plane, bus, train and tram!
Saturday morning we were off to explore the Melbourne Aquarium. On entering the first exhibit is the Gentoo and King Penguins! Cleverly designed, the penguins have an icy incline to climb up / slide down and a deep pool of water to splash around in. Fantastic stuff.
Leaving the cold behind us we were in awe of the 'frozen in time' Great Hammerhead shark 4.5 metres long caught in 2010 by fishermen. The shark, an endangered species, is currently on show at the aquarium in a bid to educate and promote shark conservation. We learnt about different types of sharks, felt their teeth and their skin.
Next it was the Weird and Wonderful - colour-changing cuttlefish, spiky lionfish, camouflaged sea dragons, weird scorpionfish, armour-carrying crabs and we even found Nemo!
Although we hadn't really traveled any great distance, the Deck Cafe was the perfect spot for morning tea. We were treated to watching turtles and catfish swim about in the river pond. Round the corner was the hands on area. Ella was fascinated with the starfish. I was impressed with the 3 types of shark eggs on display - all of which looked liked unusual seaweed to me!
Next it was the Weird and Wonderful - colour-changing cuttlefish, spiky lionfish, camouflaged sea dragons, weird scorpionfish, armour-carrying crabs and we even found Nemo!
Although we hadn't really traveled any great distance, the Deck Cafe was the perfect spot for morning tea. We were treated to watching turtles and catfish swim about in the river pond. Round the corner was the hands on area. Ella was fascinated with the starfish. I was impressed with the 3 types of shark eggs on display - all of which looked liked unusual seaweed to me!
Down the ramp into the Reef section. A beautiful floor to ceiling circular coral atoll was the highlight of this area. And finally on to the Oceanarium - wow! Just in time for the dive feed. Those stingrays were huge and almost covered the divers like a blanket trying to get some food!
We had a quick lunch before heading back to the apartment for a much needed Katy nap. The afternoon saw us wander down to Birrarung Marr Park. Named by the Wurundjeri people who originally inhabited this area, ‘Birrarung’ means ‘river of mists’ and ‘marr’ relates to ‘side’. A large area with a great little playground where we met up with Tania and Sophie (or Melbourne Sophie as Ella says). Once the girls worked up their appetite exploring the playground, we headed into town for pizza. A lovely way to complete our weekend trip.
Sunday morning was an early start - as the skybus wasn't running that early, we caught a taxi to the airport for our 8.30am flight back to Canberra.
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