Melbourne Living and the Yarra River

Here's a picture of the Yarra River, which has considerable development.  Melbourne is like many other cities such as Vancouver.  They have taken advantage of their waterways and have great walkways along both sides of the river.  Casinos, the convention centre, aquarium, shopping centres  and dozens of restuarants which spill out to outside seating along the river banks - this city has it all.  We strolled through the Botanical Gardens yesterday and were able to easily walk downtown along the river.  The train and tram system is excellent - over 100 years old in some cases so getting around is easy.  We spent one afternoon at the Docklands, where we needed to go to get our India visas, and that area has been a work in progress for about ten years.  Highrise apartments, shopping plazas, parks and restaurants line the little curves of land where boats, both grand and tiny, are moored.  It's a conbination of Granville Island and Yaletown in one, but much bigger. 

 As well, several rowing clubs are along the river, stadiums are nearby and a grand  modern square, Federal Square, as well as the major train station used by daily commuters is right at hand.  As this is Christmas week, we've seen many sets of outdoor performances at all the stations and along the streets - so strange in the middle of summer to be hearing Christmas music.

 We don't find it that warm, however.  Mornings are cool and there has been rain or showers several times since we've been here.  Melbourne has been in a drought for the past four years, so the water is welcomed. 

We've spent our last week organizing ourselves for the next four months.  We've booked land tours in India, Jordan and Eygpt, Turkey and Morocco.  This is a great deal of work - getting insurance, getting all the dates to jive, rearranging our airline tickets for these dates and extra hotel night stays.  But it's been worthwhile, I think.  We shall see.  Much of our time in South America was spent in organizing ourselves.  I just couldn't see myself trying to move through about 10 cities in India for example - figuring out where to go - the best transportation methods - train or bus and then lining up to buy tickets, getting ourselves to the right places on time with all our luggage etc. 

We booked through a Canadian company, Gap Adventure Tours. Group sizes are small - 10 to 15 people, and I think we will meet a great deal of interesting people this way as well.  We are looking forward to trying this way of traveling.

Mahara