12th August 2023 Saturday - Melbourne (day 1) - seeing Dianne and Chris.

Looking down Elizabeth Street (12 noon on Saturday)

We landed at 3 a.m. Tullamarine airport, got through on the green lane (because we did not bring in any foodstuff at all), and onto the double decker AirBus, which took us to the Southern Cross Station (The Spencer Street Station during our time). 

From there, we walked (Sam navigating) to the Rendevouz Hotel on Flinders Street and checked in at 6 am (30 minutes prior to our hotel breakfast). We had forgotten how cold Melbourne was, or perhaps we are 30 years older and feeling the cold a lot more now.

These students were us 30 years ago; not carefree but with a different set of worries on their minds; school-work, money, girl/boy-friends problems.

One of the things we wanted to do was to see how much the place has changed since 1990, so we re-traced our steps from many Sundays ago and walked across the Yarra towards the Gardens. When we travelled to Melbourne on those long-ago Sundays, we always had to rush back to Geelong at 4 p.m. to start work at 6 p.m. - today we had to hurry away from the Gardens as it started to rain. 

I had not forgotten how cold the rain was in Melbourne. 

A hint of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, the roof is built from a sandwich of waterproof membrane and plywood.

Declared open by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Robert Menzies in 1959, it was designed by Yuncken Freeman and Griffiths and Simpson.

The No. 56 tram to St Kilda East

Trams are free now in the inner city, but the new MyKi card system is a pain in the arse. We were at Melbourne Central when I received an email from Chris, Dianne's partner - inviting us to visit at 4 p.m. that afternoon. We met Chris (he was Freddo's primary school friend) for the first time that evening, and it felt like we have known him for a long time, he was lovely and showed us photos and films - including one taken during our honeymoon with Di to Penang)

We left after an hour, and asked to return to join Di for her morning walks to the park, we also promised to exchange photos and news of Di. 

goodies from the Metro - pies from the 7-eleven near the hotel.

We earlier had grand plans for our first dinner back in Australia, but it was cold, it was dark at 6 p.m., we were getting hungry and we could not decide what to eat. So we nipped in a supermarket and bought things which we used to buy; cheap wine, even cheaper biscuits and chips.

And then we had a party in our hotel room. End of Day 1.