Melbourne City And Melbourne Aquarium

I got started this morning seeing Melbourne with a visit to the Melbourne Aquarium. The visit had two purposes, the first was to collect the See Melbourne Smart Visit Card that I had ordered. The second reason was to see what is here as it was included with the See Melbourne Card.

Melbourne Aquarium

I spent around one and a half hours looking around the Aquarium. I took plenty of photos and glad that I made the choice to purchase a polarising filter for the camera. The filter very much so helped to capture some of the photos through the glass on the tanks. Below are a couple of the photos I got.

Getting Around

The easiest way to get around in Melbourne is by tram. However, this is not a free thing to do and I am glad that included in the See Melbourne Card is a Metcard for seven days travel on public transport. To collect the card I had to visit Federation Square around a 1 km walk.

Of course, once I had the Metcard, I got to use it right away. I caught the tram down to where I can cross the river to visit DFO South Wharf. There was a need to find some new shoes and I figured this might be the best place to look. Thankfully it did not take too long and I had some new walking shoes that were much better than what I had.

Eureka Skydeck

One item that is included with the See Melbourne card that caught my interest is the ability to visit the Eureka Skydeck. The observation deck is located on the 88th floor of the Eureka Building on Melbourne’s Southbank.

The view from this far up is not bad at all and you get the full 360-degree view across Melbourne. You can see everything from the bay to the south, the mountains and the entire city just about. I am happy that I have a Digital SLR camera or I doubt the photos would have been quite as good.

The photos below include The Eureka Building, Federation Square and The Melbourne Cricket ground.

Planning and Problems

The rest of the afternoon did not go exactly as planned. My original plan involved visiting both the Arts Center and the National Gallery. However, both end up having some little problems and will need to be added to another day.

The first stop at the Arts Centre I could take a tour as part of the See Melbourne Card. But it turned out that my research was incorrect, and the tour only operates on Monday to Saturday. There is a different tour on Sunday’s that is not part of the See Melbourne Card. So it looks like I will have to get back here on another day during the week.

At the National Gallery, I ran into a little problem I had not anticipated. I could not take my backpack into the gallery with me, the only option is to check it into the cloakroom. Since I was not comfortable leaving my bag with laptop and two camera’s at the cloakroom, I will have to come back another day.

Dinner And A Punt

I headed back to the hotel and got ready to head out and find something for dinner. As things happened I found myself returning to Crown Casino for another look. For dinner, I found myself a nice place to eat near to the casino and enjoyed a Chicken Ceaser Salad.

After dinner, I decided to see if I could find myself winning anything in the casino. I took a walk through the gaming area I finished up with a short play on the poker machines and tried my luck at the roulette. After about 15 minutes and spending $15, I was no better off.

There might have been a couple of little problems today but I still enjoyed my first look at Melbourne. But now it is time to wrap up today’s post and get some sleep ready for another day exploring Melbourne tomorrow. So I hope to see you again tomorrow for more.