Jodelle Dueber

Back in Melbourne: 4. Weet-Bix, Bubbles, Foodtrucks, and Saturn!

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On a beautiful Sunday morning, we headed over to watch the kids TRYathalon, sponsored by Weet-Bix cereal. It was a very impressive and well-organized event!  There were more than 2,500 kids, and G and L are now looking forward to participating in one sometime!

After the race was over, they had all sorts of stuff for kids to do, including eating some breakfast at the Weet-Bix cereal buffet and trying out a little cricket in a batting cage.

We walked down by the beach to see where the swimming portion took place and ended up finding another one of the planet sculptures — Saturn!!

As we continued walking, we, along with lots of other kids and families, were drawn to giant bubbles floating in the air.  When we got a little closer, we could see a woman standing on a small hill with a giant bubble maker.  She was like the pied piper!  She didn’t really talk to anyone; she just had a pleasant look on her face as she stood there in a flowing dress with flip flops, a backpack, and a bucket of soap water making bubbles. It was quite peaceful, except for the delighted squeals coming from both kids and adults as the bubbles came floating one by one or as long streams.

In another area of the beach, there was a foodtruck fiesta that was helping to raise money for the St. Kilda Mums organization. Besides the wide variety of food available, there were tables/blankets set up all over where you could eat and listen to music (or bounce a ball!).

    

We tried some dumplings from Dum and Dumpling — chicken, pork, and shrimp — that were super tasty.

 

It was a gorgeous day, so we continued along the Esplanade, through the St. Kilda Esplanade Market, and then past Luna Park, the Palais Theatre, and the St. Kilda Community Garden (Veg Out).

 

We stopped for a bit to throw the ball around…

A right-handed thrower learning to throw from a left-handed thrower.

… and have a quick workout before ending up at another…you guessed it…playground, where the kids played a bit of sandman and did some balance beam shows! 🙂

 

Jodelle Dueber

Back in Melbourne: 3. Half Birthday, Playgrounds, Farmer’s Market, Seashore Sights

We celebrated G’s half birthday with eggs and cinnamon rolls (her choice) and then headed to yet another new playground!

It’s amazing sometimes how many playgrounds there are!  While G worked on gymnastics skills, L worked on his drawings.  They joined up later to compare notes! 🙂

We enjoyed the Elwood Farmer’s Market so much last month, that we decided to head back again.  While some of the vendors were the same, there were a few new ones, too, including a young woman selling French macarons. G and I had a sample — they were delicious! — and chatted with her (en francais of course!) for a bit. She was from Paris and has been living in Melbourne for 6 years. G and I agreed they were the best macarons we’ve had…tasty, not too crumbly…mmmmm, so we bought a couple of chocolate raspberry ones. 🙂

Afterward, we stopped at the Elwood Primary School to play on the playground for a while. It was a very cute school with a great playground layout, including large, leafy trees in a pretty courtyard area and giant chess boards painted on the concrete!

While walking along the beach at St. Kilda one day, we spotted sculptures of a giant dog and bunny drinking coffee, the Jupiter sculpture (part of the St. Kilda Solar System Trail that we’d done when we were in Melbourne the first time…but didn’t complete), and a black 2-masted sailboat out in the distance!!

Jodelle Dueber

Back in Melbourne: 1. Return via Queenscliff to Elsternwick

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This is post 1 of 12 “Back in Melbourne” posts highlighting our adventures in Melbourne (March 7 – 22) after we returned there from our lovely tour around the Australian state of Victoria.

We headed back to Melbourne via Queenscliff — a charming Victorian village.

  

In addition to the beautiful Victorian architecture, it has a great lighthouse built in 1862 from bluestone.  It’s the only black lighthouse in the southern hemisphere.  While we couldn’t go inside, we got a little closer to it by walking around Fort Queenscliff.

   

We also climbed to the top of the 360-observatory tower for views of Port Phillip and the lighthouse.

 

Back in Melbourne, we stayed in an area called Elsternwick this time.  It wasn’t too far from where we stayed earlier, so we were fairly familiar with the area.  We spent some time at a great playground close by, enjoyed the architecture, found some cool mosaics along the sidewalk, noticed a cute bike and helmet, tried out a new ice cream place, and saw a nice sunset!