A few photos from down under, in Melbourne, Australia

We’ve had a busy week in Melbourne catching up with family, friends and the sun (coming from Ireland). We’ve also been doing our best to dodge outrageous drink prices as the average price of a decent pint in Melbourne is around 8 euros ($10 US). The Aussie dollar is very strong at the moment given the collapse of the US dollar and euro and alcohol in Australia is taxed heavily as Aussies enjoy their booze a little too much. We have just a few days left in Melbourne and then we’re off to Singapore for 4 days, then back to our jobs in our current home of Dublin.

Here’s a few photos from down under so far, much of which we’ll write more about later, with tips to save some cash.

The ANZAC War Memorial, to commemorate Australian and New Zealand troops lost in battle. Please don’t enter this memorial eating potato chips like a couple we saw, who apparently thought it was a picnic ground.

 

Melbourne’s Eureka Tower, standing at 975 feet, is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere when measured to habitable floors. Surfers Paradise in Queensland tries to lay claim as they built a taller spire. Perhaps one day we’ll erect a tall spire on our future home so we can lay claim to having the tallest house in town.

 

 

We Caught a Melbourne Storm rugby match at AAMI stadium. Despite being the defending champs there were still plenty of seats available. Rugby is bigger in the province of New South Wales (Sydney) and Melbourne was recently stripped of 2 championships for going over the salary cap. In American sports, tapes get destroyed and a draft pick gets taken away for cheating (see the New England Patriots Spygate scandal). Hey Aussies, stripping championships is very bad for business, but god do I wish the Patriots got stripped of theirs.

 

The tasting room at the beautiful Oakridge winery near Cold Stream in Victoria. They received an award for Australian winery of the year for chardonnays in 2012. It’s always good to have a ‘Sideways’ moment.

 

Bell & her mum and the sunset on the lovely South Melbourne pier after enjoying fish and chips. The Spirit of Tasmania ferry in the background seemed confused at to where it was going, new captain apparently.
 

A koala, being a typical koala, turning away from the camera, at the Healesville wildlife sanctuary. Doesn’t he realize people have paid good money to see him? Pre Madonna.

We will post about some of these things in more detail once we return from our trip in April. Let us know if there is anything in particular you’d like to read about first!