Tues.29th Sept.Hallelujah the sun does shine in Melbourne and the temperature reached 18 degrees so of course we went to Melbourne and was too warm with our coats on.We started off on the tourist tram intending to do a full loop but when it stopped for 6 minutes outside parliament house and there were tours today we decided to get off and see how the this parliamentcompares with Darwin and Canberra.It certainly is more impressive in its entrance and chambers because it was built in the 1890s it is very ornate with Waterford crystal chandeliers and 23ct gold leaf everywhere but the others places which are modern buildings had better tours and shops and cafes.One really interesting thing is a statue of Queen Victoria which had been commissioned for parliament in London but when she saw it she went ballistic to quote the guide and said no way can it stay here send it to one of the colonies and now this priceless statue is in Melbourne.What was wrong?It depicted her in dressed like an ancient warrior queen with her left foot forward which is a sign that I am going to attack you and her toes are bare and of course no one except Albert should have seen the queens toes.The sculpture committed suicide a couple of years later because he was so ashamed of offending the queen.

We walked down Burke St. via Chinatownto the Royal Arcade and then down to Central which is a shopping centre more or less attached to the railway station.The most interesting thing there is that it was built around the shot factory where they made the lead pellets for guns.The tower is quite tall and stands under a glass dome worth looking at on the web and that was probably our last trip to the city.