Melbourne day 9 - Shrine of Remembrance and heading home

After nines day on holiday in Melbourne staying in Luke’s very generous home it was time to pack up and head back to our house in Auckland; but we are not flying out until 6.45pm so we still have most of the day to spend in Melbourne.

The morning was spent packing, making sure we have everything and then saying good bye to Luke.

Young Luke really wanted to clean off his shoe marks that he had made on the seat in front of him in the rental car, so he actually worked really hard cleaning the car, he did quite a bit of work on the whole car in fact - he is a really good boy!

The only site we are going to visit today is the Shine of Remembrance, which was built after WW1. As Julianne is still not feeling well she sat in the back seat and Robin navigated us into the City using Google Maps a skill he has been practicing over the last few days and is getting quite good at.

The Shine of Remembrance, is an impressive structure modeled on one of the ancient wonders of the world, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. I have actually visited the site of the Mausoleum in Bodrum located in Turkey four years ago.

The Shine of Remembrance has a range of areas set aside to remember the different conflicts Australia has been involved in.

Down below the shrine is a museum which I found interesting because it covered how during the 1800’s Australia was originally protected by the UK and its own volunteer militia.

View of Melbourne from the top of The Shine of Remembrance

As I am familiar with NZ’s early European history it was interesting to read about Australia especially as it was colonised earlier than New Zealand . There was more direct involvement in Australia by the UK, due to the more early settlement by Europeans and the much larger population, I was surprised to read about the Australian’s who came over and fought in the NZ Maori land wars.

An original Turkish first aid kit from Gallipoli

It was then time for us to get back in the car and we drove into the city to the Minotaur comic store because I wanted to pick up a cool Star Wars ceramic thermos cup that I saw the other day. Julianne ended up driving through semi-rush hour traffic into the city and around the block and I dashed in to pick it up. I successfully brought the cup and got it safely back to NZ, but unfortunately young Luke knocked it over and broke it at home before I even got to use it – which was a shame.

I was then luckily as I got to meet up with one of my good friends Walter for lunch over at this neat burger place, always great to catch-up with Walter and I do like my hamburgers.

Afterward it was time to head off to the airport for our trip back to New Zealand. We arrived at the airport around 3-30pm, dropped the car off, had to find the check-in, headed over to customs to arrive at our gate by 5pm. It always surprises me how long it can take at the airport to just do everything and luckily we were early for our flight as the plane was early and took of a few minutes ahead of schedule which is something I don’t think I have even seen before.

And we had less than expected head-wind and we arrived back in Auckland just after midnight, which is great as is it a late night and I have work in only a few hours time.

Our trip through customs and picking up our bags went quick and easy – actually when I think about it, this was even quicker than getting everything sorted to leave in Melbourne.

So it has been a great nine days in Melbourne, the Harry Potter plays where brilliant, the nine levels of darkness gold mine tour was really dark cool and so different, Julianne got to visit the Australian Tapestry Workshop, the boys got to see native Australian animals and I got to spend time with Luke in his great house, and catch-up with both Walter and Shane – it has been a full on time but well worth it.

Blog

Melbourne day 9 - Shrine of Remembrance and heading home