Melbourne: Wine World

Our trip to Melbourne was finished off with a trip to the Yarra Valley, Victoria's oldest wine region known for chardonnays and pinot noirs. As excellent as the tram system is for public transport, they certainly make it a lot harder to get out of the city in a car. Adelle took on the task and we wound our way to the brand new super highway that's under construction! Only a small piece is complete and open to cars. It's the middle bit of what will eventually connect Melbourne with the land southeast of the city. After an hour of long waits behind trams with the Rice-a-Roni song stuck in my head, the highway ride was thrilling... even if we reached the end after 10 minutes.

The end of the highway landed us squarely in the Land of Worlds. The "World" phenomenon isn't specific to Melbourne. The Sydney Solar System is the proud home of Trophy World, Eating World and Aquarium World, amoung other worlds. In the Melbourne Solar System, I used a state-of-the-art super telescope to snag images of Flooring World and Weather World. There was one place with a name long enough to make up a world, but it seems scientists had not yet made that call.

There are not many better ways to relax than a weekend away in a wine region. We did a tasting at Rochford before heading into Healeville town to relax at the Healesville Hotel, enjoy a couple of glasses of wine, and eat a tasty meal. We put ourselves up in local motel that had a separate door for delivering food or bodies.

Awakened by the lorrikeets, gallahs and cockatoos, we were off again on Sunday. Two more wineries, a pop into a dairy farm and delivery to the airport, via St Kilda East.

Lots of photos!