Hello everyone,

Yesterday we started off by trying to get a solid internet connection for on the road and some sim-cards for our mobile phones. This proved to be much more difficult than we had anticipated so it took us the entire morning and half of the afternoon to finally get it sorted out.

We lost a lot of time because of this and decided to just visit the Docklands, Southbank and the Immigration museum. Once we arrived at the Immigration museum we learned that it was open untill 5, and since we hadn't eaten anything yet we wanted to do that first. This would cut our visit to the museum quite short so we decided to leave that for the next day. Instead we went to Southbank, just south of the Yarra river and looked for a place to eat.

We first had a drink at the Island Bar, under a footbridge over the Yarra. This cozy place was all about the ambience. It was a little place just to sit, relax and enjoy the scenery. But because they didn't have much to eat we moved on after a drink and ended up in a restaurant in Southbank.

We ordered drinks here and after a while ordered the Baby Squid and the Pumpkin Pizza. We had no idea what to expect from these orders but the result was incredible. The Baby Squids were really visible on the platter we got, and the pumpkin pizza was one big weird combination of ingredients that seemed to go perfectly together.

After our late lunch we followed the Yarra and walked into the parks. These parks were all connected and formed a beautiful green heart inside Melbourne. Everywhere you looked the views were perfect and the sweet smell of eucalyptus was everywhere. Even the music of the song birds and crickets was louder than the traffic.

Halfway through the parks we came upon the Sidney Myers Music Bowl, which looked like a great place for concerts. However, when not used for music, people used it as a sporting area, which was a surprise to us.

We continued going south from here and reached the Shrine of Remembrance. A monument to all the fallen victorian soldiers of the first world war. Very impressive. A bit further were the Royal Botanic Gardens which was also a very nice suprise. Such a beautiful park in the center of such a big city.

We strolled around for hours here untill we finally found our way back to one of the edges where there was a tram line which could take us back into the city centre. From here we walked back to the hotel. I think in total we walked about 9-10 kilomters zigzagging through the gardens, uphill and downhill. Naturally, when we got back to the hotel we were very tired.

We'll have another story for you all tonight!

Jeremy