2001 Day 8 - Melbourne, Dandenongs

Enjoyed a real cooked breakfast (as per previous day, and I forgot to mention a beef stroganov dinner I had at the Miami on Thursday night - which was yummy) and then headed off into the city. Today's tour started with a river cruise on the Yarra River, going through from the City of Melbourne through to the port area about 1/2 way up to Port Phillip Bay. We then did a bus tour of the city, seeing some of the tourist attractions of Melbourne itself, before heading off to the Mount Dandenongs (I still don't know why they're not called the Dandenong Mountains, or why they're nowhere near the urban centre of Dandenong). They are simply beautiful - they're like many other forests I've seen but much greener. The mountain ash trees (a member of the eucalypt family common in Australian native forests - there's over 600 of them) remind me a little of the karri trees in Pemberton south of Perth. Unfortunately, I felt the tour rushed through the Dandenongs - I hope to come up here and spend a decent amount of time on them someday.

I've so far spent the evening in the city after having a buffet at the All Seasons Welcome Hotel - wasn't brilliant but was decent (and budget - around $30) and I'm more than overfull :) I should really find something to do - seeing if Chris is playing down at Flinders Street sounds good right about now.