Dandenong Ranges, October 2011.

 

As part of our “girls’ weekend” in Melbourne, Judy and I headed out to the Yarra Valley, via the Dandenongs, about 35km east of Melbourne. 

 

We drove up into the hills along a road lined with overflowing banks of delicate white flowers, passing energetic cyclists, some fitter than others.

 

Sassafras is a pretty, touristy town on the range, where Judy did lots of shopping, and I took lots of pictures.

One of the shops displayed the dolls’ house, c 1910, of Dame Zara Bates, wife of the Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, who disappeared in 1967 while swimming off the beach near Portsea, east of Melbourne.

 

Sassafras flower-studded Village Green.

 

Pansies did well in Sassafras.

 

The Dandenong Ranges have been popular with day trippers from Melbourne from the 1870s onwards.

 

The caption under this picture from a Lands Department tourist brochure of 1917 reads:

“along its course enormous trees spring from groves of Sassafras, hazel and fern; while a crystal stream flowing down the glen o’erhung with ferns and native shrub conveys the sensation of delicious coolness even on the hottest day…”

 

Miss Marples’ Tea Room, Maree told us, is the kind of place where you take your mother.  Miss Marples’ owner must hold considerable sway with the local council, as the establishment was the only shop in the upmarket parking-at-a-premium village with a “no parking” zone in front of it, which is good for the patrons at the tables on the footpath, and also allows the building to be photographed more easily.

 

Sassafras daisies.

 

Sassafras colour.

 

More Sassafras colour.

 

Blue delphiniums. 

I grew up loving this A.A.Milne poem, The Dormouse and the Doctor which begins this way:

There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed
Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red),
And all the day long he'd a wonderful view
Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue).

Living in North Queensland, I knew about geraniums (red) but always – like the dormouse, when his geraniums and delphiniums were replaced, at the doctor’s orders, by chrysanthemums (yellow and white) - had to imagine delphiniums (blue).  Until now.

The Queen Comes to Queensland

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh came to Brisbane today, so Bob and I went to see them. 
Because of their ages, our ages and the frequency with which each of us visits the other’s country, we thought this could be our last chance.


Hopeful spectators lined the Victoria Bridge.


Not being amongst those people who arrived hours early to stake themselves a spot, we parked ourselves on the river bank, rather precariously, with our legs dangling down on the rocks.  We were some distance from where the Queen’s boat would arrive, but still closer than these people on the bridge.


Meanwhile, these people had secured themselves a vantage spot on a balcony on this building on the opposite side of the river.


The Queen and Prince Philip were taken on a cruise from Brett’s Wharf up the Brisbane River to Southbank, to see some areas which had been inundated by the January floods.
We thought she would be on this spick and span ferry flying  the red ensign – but we were wrong.


Police boats whizzed around officiously.


I think this one was showing off a bit.


Finally, along came the fancy boat the Queen was actually on.


Here come the Queen!  Prince Philip is behind her, carrying his panama hat.
Buckingham Palace described her dress as “pistachio”.


The Queen steps off the gangplank onto the wharf.  Prince Philip is behind the post.


This is my best picture of both the Queen and the Duke.
Anna Bligh, in red, is behind the Queen, while the lady in the pink jacket had the job of taking all the flowers given to the Queen.


Anna Bligh peeps out from under red roses.


The Queen waves, while watching her step.


The Duke keeps an attentive eye as the Queen negotiates the ramp.  Anna Bligh and her husband follow.


Up the ramp they go.  Is the Duke admiring the jacarandas?


After the official party goes up the ramp, we can’t see them any more, so we watch on a screen as the Queen and Duke (who has put his hat on now), along with Anna Bligh and her husband, walk through the crowd . 
The Queen accepts dozens of bouquets and cards, and hands them on to the pink-jacketed lady, who in turn hands them on to someone else.


The young man from Brisbane Boys’ College, in the straw boater, executed the most delightful bow after presenting his flowers to the Queen.

After her walk through the crowd, the Queen and Duke attended a reception for people affected by the summer disasters, then the Queen opened Rain Bank, a Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse Project for South Bank.  They then had lunch, hosted by the Queensland Governor, then flew back to Canberra.  A whirlwind visit.


While the Queen and Duke were lunching with the Governor, Bob and I had lunch at the Coffee Club, and watched the people streaming back over Victoria Bridge.  There was a great deal of happiness and goodwill in the crowd, and I felt lucky to have been a part of it.

Pubs of Melbourne CBD

 

While in the Melbourne CBD, I managed to photograph a few pubs for my collection.  Here are some that I found the most interesting:

The Mitre Tavern, in Bank Place, is documented by the Melbourne City Council as being the oldest building in Melbourne.  Parts of the building date back to c 1836.

According to the plaque beside the door, its steeply pitched roof is waiting for snow which has never fallen on it, and the small windows relate to the English window tax of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Originally a private home, its first liquor licence was issued in 1868, and it has been trading as a tavern ever since.

The name for the Mitre 10 hardware chain originated here.  Two of the founding members were drinking at the Tavern when inspiration struck (“mitre” is a hardware term).

 

The prize for the oldest hotel, however, goes to the Duke of Wellington, licensed in 1853.

 

The Duke of Wellington, on prime real estate on the corner of Flinders and Russell Streets, was closed in 2006 and scheduled to reopen in 2009.  This doesn’t seem to have happened.

 

The Charles Dickens Tavern was downstairs in an arcade off Collins Street.

 

It was advertising the Tutankhamun exhibition we had just visited.

 

A mural of a Dickensian streetscape seen through a window tried to trick you into thinking you weren’t under the ground.

 

The Sherlock Holmes is in a basement in Collins Street.

 

Sherlock Holmes front door.

 

The Rialto.  The “tower suite” is a mere $795 a night.

 

Bridie O’Reilly’s claims to be Melbourne’s original Irish pub.  It has a lot to answer for.

 

The beautiful Windsor Hotel has been serving high tea since 1883.  You have to book weeks in advance.  They also have a ten-choice pillow menu.

Around Melbourne, October 2011.

 

Typical Melbournians.  Maybe his mother made his trousers from scraps.

 

Top hatted doorman at the Windsor Hotel (we didn’t stay there).

A plaque by the door tells us that the Windsor is “the grandest surviving hotel from Melbourne’s 1880s boom period” and that its “flamboyant architecture reflects the optimism of Marvellous Melbourne.”

 

“Flamboyant architecture” of the Windsor Hotel.

 

Internal lifts at the Stamford Plaza (we did stay here.)

 

The Stamford Plaza was big on stairs.

 

Looking down from the lift.

 

In the morning, we had a flood in the kitchen.  The fridge had been set to Defrost, which it did all night.  When we asked Reception if someone could come and clean it up, we were expecting a capable cleaning lady with a mop and bucket.  Instead, we had a sweet young man in a suit from Reception, with two snowy white bath mats. 

At this point, he was off hunting for more bath mats.

 

Melbourne is of course noted for coffee.

 

We met up with Walter and Maree.  I went to school with Walter a few years ago.

 

With Walter and Maree, we went to the Hutong Dumpling Bar.  A delightful lunch – great food and great company.

Tutankhamun Exhibition, Melbourne October 2011.

 

Judy and I set off for a girls’ weekend in Melbourne.

For a while it looked as though we wouldn’t make it as Qantas were having industrial problems and delaying and cancelling flights.  When we finally did arrive at the airport (at 5.30am) our flight was delayed for 45 minutes because of an electrical storm, then there were road works on the way in from Melbourne airport to the city.  The result of this was that we were an hour late for our first appointment, a visit to the Tutankhamun exhibition.  However, this didn’t seem to matter, as the crowds weren’t as bad as we’d expected, and soon we were transported back to ancient Egypt.

 

The exhibition included 80 exhibits from the reigns of Tutankhamun's immediate predecessors in the Eighteenth dynasty, as well as 50 from Tutankhamun's tomb.

 

Although it featured predominantly in the advertising, the exhibition did not include the gold mask that has become the popular icon for ancient Egypt, as the Egyptian government has determined that the mask is too fragile to withstand travel and will never again leave the country. 

I was not aware of this, so was quite shocked to come to the end of the exhibition without having seen it.  Had I missed it?  However, I had seen it in the Cairo Museum when I was in Egypt with Bobbie in 2004 – something I will remember for the rest of my life.

Some facts about King Tut:

* The pyramids at Giza had been around for about a thousand years before his lifetime (approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC).

* His father was the Pharaoh Akenhaten.

* His mother was Akhenaten’s half sister.

* His reign began when he was nine years old.

* He married his half sister (her father was Akenhaten and her mother was the beautiful Queen Nefertiti, Akenhaten’s favourite wife.)  They had two stillborn daughters whose mummified foetuses were found in King Tut’s tomb.  Their beautiful little coffins were included in the exhibition.

* He died aged 18 – the cause of his death remains a mystery.

* He did not have scoliosis, as previously believed, but was just mummified a bit crooked.

* His tomb was not discovered until 1922, by Howard Carter and George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon.

I never cease to be amazed by the craftsmanship and beauty of these artifacts from so long ago.