Happy 174th Birthday Melbourne

Today is Melbourne Day. We received an Events and Attractions Program in our letter box around a fortnight ago and decided to attend the Official Flag Raising Ceremony and visit a few places listed in the booklet. Despite living close to Enterprize Park, we got there with less than 5 minutes to spare. LOL. A man named Ron Walker walked past me as we were crossing the bridge to get to the north bank and as usual, I didn't recognise him. LOL.

Here is our current Lord Mayor (Robert Doyle). Like Jeff Kennett, he seemed to like dressing up too. Is that jacket cool or what? LOL

Raising the flag ...

At the ceremony, speeches were made, a town crier read a letter from the Mayor of Launceston, semi-naked men danced, old style tram conductors gave away 'tickets' but the things I like most were performed by this small group of 'soldiers'.

The birthday cake consisted of 174 cupcakes made by Epicure. Other food and drinks were also served for free to the public but we took only one cupcake. LOL.

-

Our next stop was to visit the replica of the Enterprize docked at Waterfront City Marina at Docklands. This was a free event. I was quite surprised to see that it was much smaller than the Young Endeavour.

Docked in front of the Enterprize was the Zephyr. It is apparently Australia's oldest yacht.

We had lunch at Nandos over at Harbour Town and bought a toy for someone's birthday and another Schleich animal figurine, a kid (a baby goat) this time, for ourselves.

-

After leaving the Waterfront City Marina (Docklands), we took a tram to the other side of the city. We got off at the Parliament and then walked over to the City Museum at the Old Treasury. We have been into its basement to check out the vaults years ago but we have never explored the rooms displaying the development of Melbourne as a city. The picture I took shows a part of Melbourne in the 19th century. We were only there for about 1.5 hours and were the last to leave because it was closing time (4:00 pm). I really wanted to stay longer. I am curious about the family (the Maynards) that used to live there all so long ago. We also didn't have time to check out the shop at all.

After we left the museum, we walked over to see what was happening at the Cooks' Cottage. Although the entry fee was super affordable, we didn't take up the offer this time. We have been in there before and will properly visit this park (Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens) again later in the year. We did find something interesting when were there and I will blog about it tomorrow.