Melbourne, Australia

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November 30, 2015

Melbourne, Australia – The new home port for Golden Princess

The picture above is from a local news agency – it was big news when we arrived in Melbourne.  Here’s a quote from the article:

“THE biggest cruise ship ever to be based in Melbourne has docked in Port Phillip Bay this morning.

Glorious early morning sun greeted the 108,000 ton Golden Princess, capable of carrying some 2600 passengers, which has reached Station Pier at the peak of the Spring Racing Carnival.”

We awoke to the sound of helicopters buzzing around the ship.  We ran up to the deck and were treated to the sight of these big golden banners being dragged behind the helicopters.  As the sun rose in the morning sky, we could see hot-air balloons floating over the city too.  It was pretty spectacular!

Lots of folks joined us on deck to see the show!

The moon was pretty too!

Pretty sunrise

There were actually three helicopters – 2 carrying the banners, and a third one filming the show.

After that great welcoming event, it was time to go explore Melbourne.  We had done a little research on Cruise Critic and we learned we could purchase a train ticket that would take us to downtown.  In the Downtown area the buses and trollys are free.  We also found a ‘circle city’ tourbus that we thought was free, but turned out not to be free.  We circled the city and made a note of areas we would want to visit when we return at the end of the cruise.

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The Lion King was playing in town

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It was explained to us that several ‘alley ways’ have become trendy places for graffiti and cafes.

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Huge train yard

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Onboard the ‘circle city’ bus tour.

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The map we used to navigate around the city.

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Adam in one of the malls. There were a bunch of these with amazing architecture and ornate building fronts.

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Another of the street malls

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Collins Street is a main street in the shopping district….nice to see my family name on a lot of the signage.

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Old architecture mixed with new. It’s a pretty city.

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The “Shrine of Remembrance”

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A park in the middle of the city… a nice surprise.

A very colorful building!

This building reminded me of a cruise ship!

Glad I wasn’t driving!

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Store fronts we saw on the city circle tour

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Love the old-style buildings!

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I think this was a seven story department store!

 

After we explored, it was time to head back to the ship – sailing for New Caledonia – after 3 relaxing days at sea!

On to the next port!