Melbourne to the ferry

Dragon Tree

Monday 24th June

After organising myself, and my bag for overnight on the boat, I had a final cup of tea with Christine and Brian and then headed towards the ferry. 

Bottle trees guard the garden entrance








I traversed Westgate bridge with a minimum of stress for a change.  On the way I filled up with petrol at under 180c/l, no doubt for the last time in a very long time.

No idea, but it was pretty


I decided to spend a spare hour or two at the Geelong botanical gardens. The entrance to the botanical gardens is guarded by a magnificent display of bottle trees.  There were a few pretty things there, along with some rather interesting trees.

A slightly unusual colour for Clivia - I thought







I enjoyed an hour or so wondering around the gardens admiring the plants including the dragon tree; I'm not sure that I've seen one of those before. 

A very old-fashioned wintersweet



I still had a little bit of time to fill in so went for a drive around the East Beach foreshore. I stopped to  walk, following a sign for natural spring water; I didn't find it but I reached the East Beach area and saw the lifeguard building and the bathing Pavilions, all of which are rather lovely. I have absolutely no memory of all of that from when I was in Geelong in 1981, but I did go there to work, and it was mid winter when I went.

No idea - but bright and beautiful





I arrived to check in for the ferry in good time and in the customs' check I was asked to raise the bonnet so they could check under.  That was interesting; I had trouble finding the catch - slightly embarrassing, but a young man found it for me and I lifted the bonnet. The accumulation of leaves was a concern and someone came with a leaf blower and blew out all the loose leaf that was jammed up between the windscreen and the engine. Very nice of them to clean that out for me! They checked the boot and asked about butane gas bottles so I extracted the one that was in the stove and put the top on it and put it somewhere else which made them happy and they sent me off to another queue again to wait to get on the ferry.

In the hothouse

About 5:30 and I was settled in my cabin with a glass of bubbly to celebrate a four week holiday - even if it did have a slightly shaky start!

Also in the hothouse









I raised the blind in my cabin to double check that we were actually underway and was greeted by the fabulous sight of a huge flock of seagulls flying around us - I turned off lights and watched them for quite some time - it was rather magical

These two are obviously variations of the same


Farewell Melbourne

East Beach



















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