016 - Melbourne - Old Gaol

We don't really make grand plans when we visit somewhere.  We try to stay in a place near to where lots of tourists attractions are and then we wander.  You never know what you'll find when you wander, especially in Melbourne.

We had wandered for breakfast, and a burst water main meant we changed the direction of our travels.  As we walked home, we found the Old Melbourne Gaol which is found on a corner where lots of Melbourne history has happened, and it was relatively empty so we went in!  

It's a shared site now with the RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) so there are students and student facilities around everywhere, hence all the chairs.  This was originally the exercise yards.

I love that this is a Jail.  It's not meant to be pretty, or fun to visit and yet the way that they designed things back then (the 1800's) meant that those places still look amazing today.  It was almost cathedral like.

All the cells are filled with a different story of a different prisoner, including many death masks that they have displayed.

This was a death mask for John Weachurch, and his story is written above.  If you can manage it, I urge you to read the letter above that he wrote to his parents.  I found it really an interesting read - he seemed to blame the system for EVERYTHING that happened to him.... 'I had to beat up that person because that would prove that I didn't beat up the other person.....'

Frederick Deeming was a gentleman whose name I knew from reading many murder mystery stories (which I do like very much)

*spoiler - not really Ned's armour, that's kept elsewhere.

This is however, Ned's death mask.  He was hanged at the Gaol in 1880.  The one thing I can tell from this is that Ned must have been an enormous man.  Look at the size of his neck!  And goodlooking too, from what you can see.  Most photos show him with a full beard, but they must have shaven him before he was executed.  A good looking young man.  

I don't know how I feel about the whole "Ned Kelly was a hero" thing that has grown in Australia.  I'm really in the camp that Ned Kelly was a criminal, but perhaps forced into that life by a political system that didn't care for the Irish who were coming to Australia.  Like all of life, it isn't black or white but various shades of grey.

A small list of those unfortunates who were hanged at the Gaol.  The gallows are there onsite.  I didn't take a photo for some reason, but given how small the Gaol is inside, I can say with confidence that every prisoner would have heard them happening.  

My daughters are museum mad, and we spent a very long time in here.  Thoroughly enjoyed it, and would thoroughly recommend a visit.

Hope you're enjoying a quilty day!

Adelaide

I love Adelaide.  It’s not as big and bright as Melbourne, or as rushed as Sydney.  But I love it all the same.

Hubby’s conference was at the Adelaide InterContinental Hotel, and we had to wait at the end of the final day for him to finish.  Adelaide is built on the banks of the River Torrens, so lots of the lovely architecture fronts it.

All these cranes are rebuilding our Cricket Oval.  I’ve been there once, when I was a much younger individual.  Everyone is in such a tizzy over whether or not it is a good idea to redo the cricket oval to allow the state footballer team (Australian Rules, not soccer) access.  I don’t care one way or the other, but I have learnt one thing in my married life – you don’t mess with cricketers.  They often have very strong opinions.  Just ask my husband about whether one day cricket or T20 cricket is ‘real cricket’. 

The only real cricket goes for five days, they have to wear white and it mostly ends in a draw.  That’s real cricket.  Apparently.

Look at that lovely blue sky.  The day I took this photo it was 25 degrees.  The day before that, it was 43 degrees.  Australian weather is a very complex and frustrating thing, let me tell you.

I am such a bad Adelaide-ian that I can’t tell you what this building is.  I think (forgive me if I am wrong) it is either the old Courthouse or the Railway Station.  Didn’t they make the best railway stations back in the old days?

This could be the back view of the hotel hubby’s conference was held in.  The Intercontinental used to be the Hyatt.  Lots of famous people stay here, and there were a group of giggly little teenagers camped outside this one on the day we were here.  Apparently Robert Pattinson was in town.  Meh.  He doesn’t do much for me.  I didn’t get into the whole Twilight thing, I suspect I’m a bit too old these days.  Give me Daniel Craig any day.

Now there’s a man.  But back to Adelaide.

This one is easy.  This is the Festival Theatre, which is Adelaide’s venue for plays and things.  It gets a bad write up fairly regularly as the whole complex is really in need of some refurbishment.  Our government is having quite a lovely spend up building a new hospital and updating cricket ovals, so I guess they haven’t much money left over.  I went there a while ago and the toilets – well, they weren’t pretty. 

The beautiful old mystery building again.  Wish I knew what one it was. 

There are many lovely old buildings and churches in Adelaide (in fact, Adelaide is known as the City Of Churches) but I always forget to pull out the camera and take a picture.  I need to remember to think about you guys when I’m out visiting places – I’m sure there are millions of you (snort, like I have a million readers) who haven’t visited South Australia before and I need to remember to take all these photos so I can blog about them!

Hope you enjoyed my little wander around the back of the Intercontinental Hotel.  When I’m back in town I will take more photos and share them with you.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

On holidays

The past week we were lucky enough to stay in Adelaide, right in the city.  My husband had a course he had to attend, and we decided that a trip away would do everyone the world of good.

Such a shame about the location of our holiday house though.

I mean look at our surroundings.

All those trees.  All those birds.

Anyone would think it was the country or something!

Oh okay, you got me.  It was divine.  Purely divine.  Behind every one of these bunch of trees is a major, major metropolitan highway and suburbia.  Yet this little park was filled with trees and grasslands just like this.  I sat on our deck each night with my glass of wine and absorbed it.  Really would have been happy to pack up and move there.

Every morning we awoke to the sounds of kookaburras and galahs.  And we were forced to look at this view.

And mixed in with the scent of the eucalyptus trees was a lemon scented something – I don’t know which bush it was but it smelt so lovely every evening.

Our nearest neighbours.  They had kids too.  Isn’t it wonderful at parks like this – kids just play with total strangers and everyone has a fabulous time. 

These are baby trees really.  I didn’t get to take a photo of the old, gnarly gumtrees closer to the road, but they are massive.  It’s been so hot that all the bark had fallen to the ground leaving the trunks of these beautiful trees like this:

 

Amazing, the patterns of nature. 

Every day we would walk through the streets (as we had no car) and it was very stressful making sure the little people were holding my hand, and not venturing into danger.  My kids are country kids, and big major city highways are not something they are used to.  Me either, if I’m honest.  Both the girls told me 'they liked the city, but it’s just got too many cars in it!’.  I totally agree.

It was very nice to return home to our lovely unit (which even had an ensuite, as well as a major bathroom), airconditioning and swimming pool and backyard views like the ones above.

However, nothing got stitched, crocheted or sewed.  That’s becoming a bit of a problem really.  I can feel myself getting antsy.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

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