Melbourne - Day 5 - Catching the Ferry Tonight

Fine and clear in Melbourne today with a temperature of 23 degrees.

We were up early this morning to pack up the caravan and move to the storage area - cost $10.00 for the day. We obtained our Myki cards from reception - visitors can buy a card with enough credit for one day's travel on the trains, trams, and busses. We can keep the cards until next year and top up the card before we use them again.

We decided to spend the day in the City - more to waste time than anything else. We caught the 220 bus at the stop across the road from the Ashley Gardens Caravan Park. The trip to the city took us through the Footscray commercial centre, and past the Melbourne docklands area and took about 40 minutes. The 220 bus route passes the Victoria markets and makes its way down Queen Street - we got off at Bourke Street,

We walked into the Bourke Street Mall, checked out Myers for Di's benefit and had a morning coffee, looked at the new Emporium Shopping Centre, then walked down to Collins Street to find the Haigh's Chocolate Shop. After buying some chocolates for the grandchildren we made our way to Hardware Lane and had lunch at Max's Restaurant. After lunch it was back to the caravan park on the 220 bus to complete our final checks before heading for the ferry terminal.

Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne

Watch out for trams

Hardware Lane - Di's looking for lunch

We left the caravan park and made our way to Beaconsfield Parade/Beach Rd area of Port Melbourne to wait for boarding of the Spirit of Tasmania to commence. We spent an hour at the Pier Hotel sitting outside in the sun enjoying a couple of drinks. At about 5:00 pm we decided to roll up to Station Pier to begin the boarding process. Nothing much seems to have changed since last year with the security guards only interested in gas bottles and fuel containers. Once again it was a case of hurry up and wait for boarding to commence. We had brought some salad rolls with us and ate while we waited to board.

Parked on Beach Road waiting for boarding to commence

Spirit of Tasmania 1 with loading bridge attached

Pier Hotel at Port Melbourne

Tonight we are on the Spirit of Tasmania 1 and ended up on Truck Deck 5 which takes us over the hump as they call the bridge that takes you onto the boat. The forecast for tonight is 1 metre seas on a 1.5 metre swell - we wont even feel it! We had the feeling that the boat was not full tonight with less than the usual number of caravans. As often happens boarding was completed early and we were on our way at 7:20 pm - about 10 minutes early. Di went to bed early and had a good nights sleep while David sat up and watched the Brownlow count on TV.