Our excellent adventure part two

After our time spent wandering around Bendigo, we drove the two hours to Melbourne.  I have to tell you, my husband is a star.  Drove us right into the middle of the city with no complaints.  I’d be grey from the worry or bald from the stress of pulling my hair out.  But he was totally unflappable. 

Clever man, he got us there, and we stayed at a very lovely hotel.  The girls loved it, we were on the seventh floor and they thought we were SO HIGH, MUM.  Our days were spent doing the usual tourist thing.  We went to the Museum, the Aquarium and the Zoo.

It’s funny what you find when you don’t seek to find it.  I think that word is serendipity.  We went to the Zoo on the day before we left, and found in the middle of it a small park where the kids can run around like lunatics and eat their lunch.  We also found this.

Ignore the small children popping up in the photos.  I don’t know who they belong to.  This elephant was covered in brightly coloured metals.  It was AMAZING.

After wandering into the small park complete with antique merry go round (I didn’t take a photo of it but the little children had the BEST ride), we found all of these:

Can you see?  How fantastic.  Too much to look at, every inch is painted.

Each elephant had a plaque at the bottom that explained why the painter had decided to go the way they did with their designs, but I didn’t get much chance to read them due to those pesky kids.

With all the luscious painting over so many of these guys, this pure gold one really stood out.  There’s something about the simplicity of it that appealed to me.

So many wonderfully painted designs.

I’m sure that each one means something to the designer.  Some are very obvious.  Some, like the one above, not so much.

Oh look!  A quilted one!  This one seemed a little insipid compared to some of the other ones but appealed to me because – well, I’m a quilter.

So many people did the beautiful (but obvious) painting of endangered animals.  This one was totally made from reclaimed bits of metal.  Totally, fabulously amazing. 

Very aztec.  Very arty.  Can you see the bones underneath?

I took photo after photo.  I still didn’t take all of the photos I could have.

Very rainforest- inspired.  Bright green was everywhere on this day.

Fish.  Seahorses.  Random child.

LOVED this one.  Loved the random jumble of brightly coloured animals and birds.   Loved that despite it's randomness, it worked.

Pink. Handy. Yep.

Almost hippy.  I love the way all the artists painted their eyes different.  Some were the eyes of other animals, like this one.

The rest of the wonderful rusty one.  Can you see the tap for his nose? Bike chains were his nose.  Spanners were his jaw.  Clever, clever people.

Every inch was painted.  The inside legs, and tummies.

This one stood out.  I guess when I think of elephants, I think of the sunsets over the Sahara.

Pink!  Again. 

Oh those kids again.  I wish their mother would control them.

A delicately painted black elephant, looking like he’s wearing a gold nightie.

Is this a red panda?  There was a real one at the zoo but he was fast asleep, didn’t want to come out and play.

One side of a lovely one.

The other side of it.  Very clever.  Some people are so very clever.

Butterflies and bamboo.

Can you see the leopard on the ear?  And the cat on the trunk?  Look at that elephant’s eye, looking at you.

Every inch of this one was covered. 

And this little beauty – well he was knitted!  By far the most realistic elephant there.  People kept touching him.  The texture of the fabric used really invited people to touch him. 

This is a very American Indian inspired one.  Lots of dream catchers painted on it.

The Melbourne Trams are famous.  This is the city nightlife, and the trams of Melbourne.  Radically different from the rest. 

Apparently, this child’s favourite.  Or so she kept telling me. 

Oh alright, they are my girls.  Rabbits.  Kept on insisting that I take their photo.

So that was my zoo day.  Yes, there were a thousand animal photos too but I figured this post may well blow up your computer with all the pictures.  Maybe I’ll post the animals tomorrow.

Or it may be back to quilting.  Who knows?

Till tomorrow,

Suzie