The Melbourne holiday

[Flinders Street Station clock tower] – V’s Flickr, 4 Oct ‘07.

My family (mother and brother) along with two of my ex-colleagues came over to Melbourne for a two week stay in early October. (Technically it was eleven days but hecks, who’s counting.)

Here’s the places that they went to:

Around the city

Southbank

Directions: Just behind Flinders Street Station.

-~-

Crown Casino

I suppose this one needs no introduction : )

-~-

St Paul’s Cathedral

Directions: it’s just along Swanston Street; you can’t miss it!

-~-

Queen Victoria Market

Directions: Just walk all the way up Elizabeth Street.

-~-

Hard Rock Cafe

Directions: Walk all the way to the beginning of Bourke Street.

-~-

Melbourne Zoo

Directions: take the train to Royal Park Station.

-~-

Geelong

Directions: we drove there, and I’m too lazy to write the precise directions down. Google Maps should do the trick.

-~-

Great Ocean Road

Directions: just follow the website’s directions if you wanna drive, or book a tour package.

-~-

Footscray

A Vietnamese suburb where we used to go grocery shopping at.

Directions: either drive, or take the train to Footscray station.

-~-

St Kilda Pier

Directions: take the number 16 tram down Swanston Street to St Kilda Road and get off when you see the beach. (check Metlink Melbourne if you wanna be sure)

-~-

The Royal Botanic Gardens

Shrine of Remembrance

Directions: once again, take the number 16 tram down Swanston Street to St Kilda Road and get off at the appropriate stop. (check Metlink Melbourne if you wanna be sure)

-~-

Phillip Island – Penguin Parade

They took the same AAT Kings tour package that I did on my previous trips, which includes:

Warrook Cattle Farm, Mooey Valley: the kangaroo farm.

Extra stopover at Woolamai Beach. They didn’t have this the last time, probably different season. (Either that, or the driver really hated me.)

The Koala Conservation Centre..

And another random stopover.

.. and Phillip Island itself.

Penguin plushie army.

Directions:
The package costs AUD$75 per person, and bookings can be made at The Greenhouse Backpacker, 228 Flinders Lane.

-~-

Addendum:

- Users of Windows Vista’s Automatic Update complain of unwarranted updates; Microsoft denies that it’s their fault. I wonder.

- Wubi is a hassle-free installer for the various Ubuntu Linux flavours. Does not require separate partitioning, it’s stored on a separate file in your existing Windows directory and sounds like the way VMWare works. According to the wiki on Wubi, it’s a disk image instead of a virtual machine though. Give it a go if you’re lazy to install Ubuntu into a separate partition : )

- Phil Jackson and Tex Winter’s famous NBA triangle offense is explained in a series of videos, titled In My Own Words – courtesy Pabaon Sports.

- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers – really makes sense, especially the bit about asking “Why?” instead of “What?” Knowing the reasoning behind the answer helps a great deal. – courtesy FoundRead via Cowboy Caleb

---

Tags: Australia, Geelong, Great Ocean Road, Melbourne, Philip Island, Photography, St Kilda, Victoria

You might be interested reading in these posts:

• The first Australian weekend
• St Kilda revisited
• Rialto Tower