Our first trip to Australia! We drove down to Mom’s in Vacaville a couple of days ahead, then drove to BART to get the train to SFO. We parked at the long term lot in the North Concord station, where it’s an excellent bargain if you are less than a month stay. This turned out to be a perfect situation for this trip. An evening flight out of SFO on a Tuesday, arriving in Melbourne on Thursday morning. Surprise! we didn’t suffer any jetlag.

*Cool Beatles mural waves hello to SF, but goodbye to travelers going through this gate.*

*Air New Zealand— we had a very comfortable flight, even in economy!*

North Melbourne Neighborhood

For our week in Melbourne, this was our neighborhood. The city is well connected by trams and buses, and we got our Myki transit cards on the first morning! Bob collects transit cards from every city we visit!

Navigation Notes For Photo Galleries

On laptops, click on a thumbnail to expand the photos. When I’ve written captions, they are visible when you move cursor towards bottom of photo, and caption pops up. Click the arrows at edge of photo to advance images. Or, use arrow keys on keyboard.
On mobile devices: Touch first photo in a gallery to expand. Advance images by swiping. When there’s a caption there’s a little dot at bottom right of photos. Touch that to read captions. Once you activate one caption, others should appear when swiping through gallery.

Wilson’s Promontory Day Trip

On the first Saturday of our trip, we went with a small group and a tour guide to Wilson’s Prom, a national park in Victoria. We left Melbourne at 7:30 am, and it was about a 2 hour drive to get there. We saw a wide variety of terrain, and walked A TON! It was a long day, but totally worth it. The highlight was stopping at a wildlife viewing area and we got to be in a big open space with kangaroos!

There’s a video I made of kangaroos and emus on YouTube.

Queen Victoria Market

A famous landmark of Melbourne, not to be missed. We visited on more than one occasion— it’s huge! More than a city block of market stalls, shops, food halls and food trucks. We gawked, shopped and wove our way through crowds. The produce was fantastic, though I didn’t take any photos of those stalls. I figured I didn’t want to be one of those tourists! But I was when it came to the seafood stalls and a few other very cool shops inside the massive market building.

Downtown: Central Business District

The State Library of Victoria

This is an amazing space.

The Ian Potter Center and The National Gallery of Victoria

Two buildings, amazing art. The Ian Potter Center focuses on Australian artists, indigenous and non-indigenous artists from the colonial period to the present day. The National Gallery of Victoria, NGV International houses an extensive collection from Europe, Asia, America and Oceania.