David M. Byrne
Well-Known Member
Hello again,
It’s day 49 of the trip & I’m just about ready to say goodbye (for now) to Australia. I’m sitting in the departures lounge of Melbourne airport waiting for my flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Melbourne is the 2nd most populous city in Australia & the capital of the southern state of Victoria. I’ve spent the last 6 days here, having a look around this most British of Australian cities. The weather hasn't been great; the climate down here, on the edge of an Australian autumn, is a far cry from the warmth & dryness of the Sunshine Coast, some 1,500km north of here. But it has been fun. Oh, and it hasn't all been about street photography, colonial buildings, churches & quaint Victorian era parks - I also spent a day being driven along the Great Ocean Road, one of the world’s most scenic ocean drives just a few hours west of the city. These are my selection of pictures taken over the last 6 days, pictures 38-44 that I have presented here to represent my trip thus far.
Picture 38, Day 45 – Treasury Gardens, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
Melbourne is a city of parks; there are a lot of them. I walked through & took pictures in quite a few of them – pictures of flowers, water fountains, bushes & general greenery. However, for some reason this picture of strollers in Treasury Gardens is my favourite of the lot.
Picture 39, Day 45 – Graffiti, Hosier Lane, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
Melbourne has some of the country’s most impressive colonial buildings but in areas it’s a very rough-around-the-edges sort of place… at least visually. Graffiti is prominent all over the city & its surrounding suburbs. Most of it, I'd imagine, is viewed as it is the world over - as a problem & an eyesore - but here, in a laneway only a few yards from Federation Square in the heart of the city, it seems to add character. In a city embraced by artists & the bohemian types this just seems to work… or at least it did to me.
Picture 40, Day 45 – St. Paul’s Cathedral , Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
A wide-angle shot of the inside of St Paul’s Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, a major city landmark & one of the few churches in the city that allows photography. When reading up on this place a few numbers caught my eye: the foundation stone was laid in 1880; the cathedral was consecrated in 1891; &, rather bizarrely, the building spires did not begin until 1926. However, it was the figure of $3,000 that really caught my attention. That, seemingly, is the daily cost of opening the doors to this place.
Picture 41, Day 45 – Flinders Street, Station, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
Flinders Street Station is the central railway station of the suburban railway network of Melbourne. Opened in 1854, it is a cultural icon of the city & is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. Also shown in the picture is one of Melbourne’s iconic trams, just one of the trams running on what is the world’s largest tram network.
Picture 42, Day 48 – The Twelve Apostles of the Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia. April 22nd 2012.
The Great Ocean Road, a 2 hour drive west of Melbourne, is an Australian National Heritage listed 243-kilometre stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia. The road, built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932, is the world's largest war memorial, dedicated to casualties of World War I. The road winds through varying coastal terrain providing access to several prominent landmarks including the nationally significant Twelve Apostles of Port Campbell National Park, limestone stack formations formed by erosion due to the harsh weather conditions from the Southern Ocean. Standing on the viewing platforms looking out on the power of the Southern Ocean pounding the coast is an awesome, humbling experience.
Picture 43, Day 48 – London Arch, Port Campbell National Park, Victoria, Australia. April 22nd 2012.
This is my favourite capture of a day spent driving the Great Ocean Road. It’s a 2-second exposure in very low light (it was almost dark) of London Arch, another of the well-known limestone formations of Port Campbell National Park. Until 1990 this formation was a double-span natural bridge, called London Bridge. However, the arch closest to the shore collapsed unexpectedly on January 15th of that year leaving two tourists stranded on the outer part of the structure. They were rescued sometime later by helicopter.
Picture 44, Day 49 – Autumn in April. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 23rd 2012.
It’s weird walking around any city in April and seeing leaves fall from the trees. But that’s what it’s like in the Southern Hemisphere. This is an autumnal picture I took in Kings Domain, an area of parkland on the south of the Yarra River.
What’s Next?
New Zealand beckons. And very shortly; I hope to be there in a few hours. I’ve been there before and I know how scenically stunning it is. I’m just hoping I can do its wonders justice. No pressure then.
I hope you enjoyed this latest installment. Don’t forget you can keep up to date with my present whereabouts by visiting the dedicated travel page of my photography blog.
Until next time.
David M
It’s day 49 of the trip & I’m just about ready to say goodbye (for now) to Australia. I’m sitting in the departures lounge of Melbourne airport waiting for my flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Melbourne is the 2nd most populous city in Australia & the capital of the southern state of Victoria. I’ve spent the last 6 days here, having a look around this most British of Australian cities. The weather hasn't been great; the climate down here, on the edge of an Australian autumn, is a far cry from the warmth & dryness of the Sunshine Coast, some 1,500km north of here. But it has been fun. Oh, and it hasn't all been about street photography, colonial buildings, churches & quaint Victorian era parks - I also spent a day being driven along the Great Ocean Road, one of the world’s most scenic ocean drives just a few hours west of the city. These are my selection of pictures taken over the last 6 days, pictures 38-44 that I have presented here to represent my trip thus far.
Picture 38, Day 45 – Treasury Gardens, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
Melbourne is a city of parks; there are a lot of them. I walked through & took pictures in quite a few of them – pictures of flowers, water fountains, bushes & general greenery. However, for some reason this picture of strollers in Treasury Gardens is my favourite of the lot.
Picture 39, Day 45 – Graffiti, Hosier Lane, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
Melbourne has some of the country’s most impressive colonial buildings but in areas it’s a very rough-around-the-edges sort of place… at least visually. Graffiti is prominent all over the city & its surrounding suburbs. Most of it, I'd imagine, is viewed as it is the world over - as a problem & an eyesore - but here, in a laneway only a few yards from Federation Square in the heart of the city, it seems to add character. In a city embraced by artists & the bohemian types this just seems to work… or at least it did to me.
Picture 40, Day 45 – St. Paul’s Cathedral , Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
A wide-angle shot of the inside of St Paul’s Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, a major city landmark & one of the few churches in the city that allows photography. When reading up on this place a few numbers caught my eye: the foundation stone was laid in 1880; the cathedral was consecrated in 1891; &, rather bizarrely, the building spires did not begin until 1926. However, it was the figure of $3,000 that really caught my attention. That, seemingly, is the daily cost of opening the doors to this place.
Picture 41, Day 45 – Flinders Street, Station, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 19th 2012.
Flinders Street Station is the central railway station of the suburban railway network of Melbourne. Opened in 1854, it is a cultural icon of the city & is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. Also shown in the picture is one of Melbourne’s iconic trams, just one of the trams running on what is the world’s largest tram network.
Picture 42, Day 48 – The Twelve Apostles of the Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia. April 22nd 2012.
The Great Ocean Road, a 2 hour drive west of Melbourne, is an Australian National Heritage listed 243-kilometre stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia. The road, built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932, is the world's largest war memorial, dedicated to casualties of World War I. The road winds through varying coastal terrain providing access to several prominent landmarks including the nationally significant Twelve Apostles of Port Campbell National Park, limestone stack formations formed by erosion due to the harsh weather conditions from the Southern Ocean. Standing on the viewing platforms looking out on the power of the Southern Ocean pounding the coast is an awesome, humbling experience.
Picture 43, Day 48 – London Arch, Port Campbell National Park, Victoria, Australia. April 22nd 2012.
This is my favourite capture of a day spent driving the Great Ocean Road. It’s a 2-second exposure in very low light (it was almost dark) of London Arch, another of the well-known limestone formations of Port Campbell National Park. Until 1990 this formation was a double-span natural bridge, called London Bridge. However, the arch closest to the shore collapsed unexpectedly on January 15th of that year leaving two tourists stranded on the outer part of the structure. They were rescued sometime later by helicopter.
Picture 44, Day 49 – Autumn in April. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. April 23rd 2012.
It’s weird walking around any city in April and seeing leaves fall from the trees. But that’s what it’s like in the Southern Hemisphere. This is an autumnal picture I took in Kings Domain, an area of parkland on the south of the Yarra River.
What’s Next?
New Zealand beckons. And very shortly; I hope to be there in a few hours. I’ve been there before and I know how scenically stunning it is. I’m just hoping I can do its wonders justice. No pressure then.
I hope you enjoyed this latest installment. Don’t forget you can keep up to date with my present whereabouts by visiting the dedicated travel page of my photography blog.
Until next time.
David M
