Flinders Street Station

Location: Melbourne, Australia
Address:  Flinders Street
Date: May 2012
Website:  whatson.melbourne.vic.gov.au

  On Flinders Street in Melbourne, Australia stands a beautiful gold, orange and green building.  This is the oldest and busiest railway station in all of Australia.  The current building was completed in 1910 but a train station has exisited on this spot since 1854.  We admired the building as we drove by on one of Melbourne's trolleys and while we waited for a tour bus in Federation Square.

  The station boasts the fourth longest railway platform in the world.  The photo above was taken from across the street at Federation Square and only shows a portion of the width of the platforms.  The station portion is enclosed but where the trains arrive is mostly open to the air.

  One end is the main entrance and it has clocks just above the entrance which show the different train departing times.  We loved the colour of the facade and the copper dome roof which has turned green with age.

  The opposite end has a large clock tower showing the actual time.  We never did make it into the station, but we found this to be the most beautiful building in all of Melbourne.  We drove rental cars and flew as we travelled around Australia, but maybe next time we should take the train.

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Map of Our World
Flinders Street Station

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Post # 208

Batman Avenue

Location: Melbourne, Australia
Address: Batman Avenue
Date: May 2012
Website: www.onlymelbourne.com.au

  We were headed towards Federation Square when we noticed the street sign in front of us.  We were about to cross Batman Avenue.  Maybe Melbourne would also have a Spiderman Street or Iron Man Crescent?  We wondered why the street was named after a fictional superhero.  It was only much later that we would discover the street was actually named after John Batman, who was one of the founders of Melbourne, Australia.  John Batman died in May 1839 and it would be almost exactly 100 years before the Batman character made his debut in Detective Comics #27.   Detective Comics is better known as DC comics.  Try as we might we could make no other connections between John Batman and the caped crusader.  We even looked through his family tree hoping to find a Bruce or an Alfred or a Wayne.  No luck.  John Batman had seven daughters and one son and married a woman named Elizabeth.  We were hoping that he had married a woman named Robin, because the name Robin Batman would have been awesome. 

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Map of Our World
Batman Avenue

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Post # 110

12 Apostles

Location: Victoria, Australia
Address: Great Ocean Road
Date: May 2012
Website: parkweb.vic.gov.au

  The Great Ocean Road runs along the southern part of Australia in the territory of Victoria.  One of the highlights of this drive is the 12 Apostles. These are tall rock formations that were caused by the giant ocean waves eroding the limestone coast.  They are called the 12 Apostles but when we visited there were only about 7 still standing, and we believe there may have never been more than 10.  We were informed that another one had fallen just the year before.

  As you stand on the coast and face south you really feel the awesome power and beauty of nature.  With the wind blowing in our faces and the waves crashing against the rocks we really felt like we were at the edge of the world.  Since at this point we were just west of Tasmania, there was truly nothing but ocean between us and Antarctica.  Amidst all of this the Apostles stand there just off the coast, braving the elements.

  The wind began to pick up and darker clouds were moving in.  We were still about a 3 hour drive from our hotel in Melbourne so our Aussie family tour guides wisely decided it was time for us to go.

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Map of Our World
12 Apostles

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Post # 15