Melbourne part II

I forgot to mention that after having lived the cultural highlights of Melbourne at the museum and the town hall I went to see some kind of other show being enjoyed a lot by the Australians, the Casino. Having been to the Baden Baden casino and also the one in Madrid, where formal clothes are a condition to enter, in the Melbourne Crown Center this is not the case. They even let me enter in my casual backpacker outfit, so you can imagine that the standar was not very high. The best of it was that I got asked for my id for age proof. How I enjoyed this, hasn't happened to me since I got 18. The casino itself is huge, a lot of gambling machines and also black jack, poker and roulette tables and it was packed by gamblers, mainly Asians. I just wondered around a bit but all the noise and the flashing lights was just to much, I wasn't event tempted to play, so I left soon again.

On the following day I walked down to St. Kilda beach to have a nice breakfast with a great view.

I wandered around the area, along the beach and the promenade a bit and then returned to the city with the tram. As I will be going to Tasmania tomorrow I've bought myself a tent, which supposedly is very easy to erect, even for camp dummies like me, but I will let you know if it is really Katja proof after my first try. With the backpack full of useful camping material, I walked over the Queen Victoria market where nearly everything is sold from meat over fruit and vegetable to clothing and other useful or rather useless stuff. Back at the hostal, I've had a free BBQ that they offer here once a week for people staying at the Ritz for Backpackers.

This morning it was raining but as it cleared up soon after having finished breakfast, I rent a bike and did a bike tour of around 3 hours along the Yarra River. It is really amazing how well the city is prepared for bikes, the track was all the way very well done and also well signalized so it was even for me impossible to get lost. I had a nice (and very cheap) lunch at a former Abbey. Cheap because you could give what you thought it was worth, and being "schwaebisch" I only gave 5 $ for the lunch and a tea. (as an excuse, I didn't have more coins). After returning with the bike to the city center I went to the Aquarium and had a look around there. Nice sharks, hope to see some face to face in the ocean up north.....

Well early tomorrow morning I will be taking a flight to Hobart Tasmania to do the Overland Track, so probably there won't be any update until the end of next week. If you don't hear from me by then, get worried and call somebody, I might be lost in the bush.