On Sunday, September 28, we left the Outback and moved on to Melbourne.
The view from our room on the 38th floor of the Hotel Sofitel— |  —which looked even better at night |
The view from the men's room of the Sofitel's 35th floor restaurant was a bit intimidating |
The Windsor Hotel, built in 1883-84 |  Parliament House, as seen through a web of overhead tram wires |
The Royal Exhibition Building was originally erected for the International Exhibition of 1880 |
While wandering the city, we discovered that Melbourne also has a Luna Park—only unlike Sydney's, this one was open |  Amusement parks have always fascinated me, so I enjoyed the fanciful architecture of St. Kilda's Luna Park |
An Egyptian mural inside Luna Park |
Anonymous poetry on a lamp post outside the Melbourne Museum |  A wall painting outside of Luna Park hopes to change the world |
A question on a Melbourne wall garnered two contradictory answers |
Flowers make Irene smile near the Royal Exhibition Building |  One of the many entrance gates to the Royal Botanic Gardens |
Cygnets struggle to walk inside the Gardens |
We had a long conversation— and lunch—with Dick and Val Honor, whom we met at the Royal Botanic Gardens |  A sculpture of the lead characters from the Australian children's classic The Magic Pudding: The Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum |
Norman Lindsay's illustration of Bunyip Bluegum, Bill Barnicle, the Magic Pudding and Sam Sawnoff from the 1918 novel |
A peaceful vista at the Royal Botanic Garden |  Che sells Beck's beer at a Melbourne bus stop |
Exhausted, we rest in the furniture department of Marc Jones department store and snap this photo of ourselves in a mirror |
Irene can't escape— |  —the butterflies at— |
—Royal Melbourne Zoo |
Scott, however— |  —prefers to keep his butterflies— |
—at arm's length |
Irene and Scott have dinner with Andrew Enstice, Janeen Webb, and Jack Dann |  Gog and Magog strike the hours inside the Royal Arcade, built 1869-70 |
The Lonely Planet calls the controversial architecture of Federation Square arts complex "a futuristic prison in a John Carpenter movie." |
To help publicize— |  —the Spring Racing Carnival— |
—the streets of Melbourne— |
—were filled with painted horses |  On the way home, we changed planes in Auckland, which also considered itself the center of the universe |
Unfortunately, all we saw of New Zealand was out the windows of the Auckland airport |