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Australia - Melbourne City, I love it.

10th September - Melbourne State library and Crown Casino.

We left Kat's Aunties house and off we went feeling pretty refreshed with our neater than ever packed backpacks full of clean clothes and took a train into the city.

I had the most fantastic day.  Melbourne is a beautiful city and so easy to find your way around.  I decided to head off into the city alone today and found my way to the State library.  Which is not like a normal Library, it was fantastic.  It was established in 1853, and is apparently the largest public research and reference library in Victoria. Although it's not a lending library, books, information, services and reading rooms we available to me, so I was in my element. The library offered a vast range of collections that included current and historical books, manuscripts, maps and photographs.

I begun by settling myself down and doing a bit of research in the quiet reading room and then I made my way out to the 'Cowen Galery', which was a wonderful collection of paintings and sculptures illustrating Victoria's history, landscapes, early European exploration, significant events and settlement in Australia.  There was so much to read and learn.  There was also a 'bust collection' with the heads of governors, bishops and viscounts of both England and Australia.  Apparently this gallery alone held over a million images.

Next I climbed up to the third floor, the 'Queens Hall', there was not much to see there so I swiftly made my way up to the fourth floor, which was called the 'Mirror of the world', basically showing how we learn and how we gain so much  about our past through books.  There were books dating back to the 1400's, old maps, big books, mini book and it was all so interesting, I could have stayed in there for hours but time was of the essence so I moved on up.

The fifth floor was called the 'Changing Faces' exhibition, where it was focused upon people, places and events that have shaped life in Victoria from the time of the first contact between the Europeans and Aboriginal people through to today.  It brought stories to light using picture, manuscript, maps and artifacts.  I was most excited to see Ned Kelly's armor.  Before heading back down stairs I clambered up the narrow winding stair case to the top floor which had an impressive dome roof and a balcony that looked down through the lower three floors.  The views outside were amazing.

 Back on the ground floor I decided to check out the new  Karin Catt's 'Famous' exhibition.  It was a collection of portraits.  They ranged from magazine  covers, provocative, humorous, stylish or just really unusual.  Next to each picture there was a summery of their life and what they were/are famous for.  There was everything from actors to singers, world leaders to general icons.  From Muhammad Ali to Busta Rhymes.  Sir Richard Branson to Sir Elton John, then from President Clinton to even his holiness the Dali Lama.I knew who most of the people were so found reading all these little captions rater interesting, much like reading a girlie gossip magazine. I must have spent hours in the library because by the time I left it was dark and time to meet Kat and Jenna for dinner.

That evening we headed off to the famous Crown Casino Entertainment Complex.  It is centred on its gaming rooms and its multi-storey five-star Crown Towers hotel ( a huge land mark). We had no desire to wager money at the roulette or blackjack tables, and the hundreds of poker machines.  But enjoyed wandering round this huge vibrant complex, where we could grab some food and watch other people throw money down the drain, trying to figure out the rules to each game, and probably putting a lot of people off!

11th September - Museum of Melbourne

After a very uncomfortable nights sleep with springs sticking into my back, a trickle of a shower and joining the locusts for the free hostel breakfast Jenna and I made our way out to the Museum of Melbourne.  It is one of Australia's largest museums and contained excellent exhibits and was divided along all different themes.  We started off learning about 'Australia's History', which then led to the'Aboriginal Bunjilaka Center', which I found so interesting, and was what I was really there for.  WE made our way past all the impressive art, including brightly decorated boomerangs and didgeridoos and read many sad stories about the aboriginals sad and difficult past.  I then made my way up to 'Ta pacifica Gallery', where I could learn about all the pacific islands, for example: Papa New Guinea and looked around all the boats on display.  I spent the rest of the day looking round all of the other sections of the museum.  There was: ' The forest Gallery' - where we could look through glass to an artificially made rain forest, 'The Science and life Gallery' - where I looked round over 1500 species of primitive animals.  Next was one of my favourites; 'Bugs alive' where we learnt about all the insects that could kill us in Australia and even watch ants working away in their colonies ( which I found rather addictive, almost like watching 'Big Brother').  I thoroughly enjoyed 'Marine life' where I could marvel over creatures from the most beautiful to the most scary, and even a pickled Giant Squid.  The final two exhibits were 'The Evolution Gallery' and 'The Mind and Body Gallery', these sorts of things are always fascinating to see but I am sure I have seen it all in museums at home, but it reminded me how far things have come and advanced since I have been on this earth.  I wished that we could have spent longer, but even after rushing round we were pushing ourselves to see everything before the place closed, enjoying free pasta at our hostel that evening and going to bed thinking long and hard into the night about all the interesting things I had seen that day.

12th September - Moving Image, then back to Sydney.

We spent the morning in a Disney Pixar's exhibition about how cartoons etc are made.  It was fun, and all very interactive playing about with digital movement sensors on a blue screen and watching little clips of different types of animation.  It was a good way to spend the morning before flying back up to Sydney in order to catch out flight the next morning to New Zealand.