Day 15: Exploring Melb’n

Up at a leisurely hour (9am) and headed into the city to seek our car. After sorting some miscommunication with our car rental, we headed down one block to the fabled Anton’s – located in a huge mall that had been built around (and in) an old Shot Factory over which they’d built a tall ovate dome [Below. Upper left].

I truly didn’t expect the massive orgy of consumerism (if only because everything was so expensive!), but we had heard wonderful things about Anton’s and were not deterred (the first hit online was a review from Mikelangelo about his time getting a suit, and both Mikey and Phyro spoke glowingly about it). Venetia spotted my suit immediately but made sure to explore all the racks first before asking our fabulous clothier Lauren for a trial run of my suit. I tried on the full suit, from a pimpin’ too-small blue bowler to the super shiny shoes.

After due deliberation, we bought the silk brocade jacket and hightailed it to Jason McEachen’s apartment where we met up with him, Kim, and Iona [barely visible on Jason's back below].

We had lunch with them on the pier (my first fish and chips in Oz, Venetia had a delicious sweet potato hash) before moseying to Luna Park where we met up with Stefan and Edith, who in their turn took us many other places.

The rest of the day was a mad-cap blur:
We window-shopped for sweets and fancy cakes in St. Kilda. Hopped on the tram and headed to Fitzroy to admire charming architecture and intricate ironwork – well as saucily named shops like “Naked for Satan” and “Lucrezia & De Sade”. We ate an amazing lamb dinner in a restaurant of ambiguous ethnicity. We passed Lygon Street on our way to the tram, where we admired both the desserts and the adorable lambs on the glass window above the corner door. We headed back to Jason’s to back-up our 2400 pictures – for there are surely more to come!

Day 16: Drive to Canberra

We had a lovely breakfast with Jason, Kim, and Iona, we set off to the east at 8am.

After an hour or so we passed a town where the battle between religion and the water utility seemed to have gotten ugly, in a strange Tolkienesque fashion: We lunched in the curiously named Lakes Entrance and then headed north, passing as we did over Venetia’s long-dreamt-of Snowy River. We took a brief spin around the curious capital (you can play Footie on the roof!), and headed north to the University district where we found John Hughes and his lovely wife Pip.   After some in-depth geekery we headed out for sushi, kimchi, and yakisoba. Conversations about the Unification Church, free form gaming, and business followed. A more splendid day could not have been had.