February 20, 2014 … unguided purposeless wandering

I am still in Melbourne, enjoying myself.

The vista in all directions from here was equally harsh and (to my eyes) barren. Yet it is home to many. Not a place to which tourists come, I think.

It’s a city I like very much, but that may be because, like most tourists, I have stayed in its better areas. Yesterday I used my electronic “Myki” card to take trams and trains at random, and ended up in East Footscray. There will be people for whom Footscray is home, and I don’t mean to offend them, but it was a scary place. It reminded me of the way the movies portray the cities in “enemy” territory.

Melbourne has a large fleet of mostly modern trams, but for much of the day they are uncomfortably crowded and at times ridiculously so.

On a tram back to St Kilda, I reached the conclusion that those advocating trams or light rail for Wellington are in love with a concept that is nowhere near as pleasant  as their dream. This was early afternoon, long before rush hour.

Once the venue for a royal visit and gathering place for high society, it is now much more mundane

I got back to the house just as the sky darkened and a thunderstorm began. Heavy rain followed. It persisted. Then it eased, so I put the storm jacket on the camera and went out to grab some shots. I wandered along the St Kilda waterfront. The old pier was once a gathering place for the city’s rich and famous. Now it seems to be a refuge for penguins and a haven for people fishing.

The whole city is freshly washed by the storm just passed.

From there, now that the rain had stopped, there was a clean fresh view back to the city.

About the same size as a Caspian tern this has darker body colour and a yellow bill.

Oh, and there was a tern which I think to be the crested tern (Sterna bergii) on the basis of its large size, full dark cap and bright yellow bill.

That’s all for now.

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