Voyage of discovery

With only three weeks to go I decided yesterday to do some serious research into the place I am about to visit. I had looked briefly before, but I have never been one who revises early. The internet is a wonderful thing but I was struck, as someone whose country has history dating back two thousand years, how young Victoria is as a state. Obviously Australia has a history before it was colonised by Europeans, but that history isn't one of ancient castles or Roman settlements. There is no long line of kings and queens to learn. I know there was a gold rush and that the "Welcome Stranger" nugget was found in the state in 1869 and I know that Victoria was once part of New South Wales, separating in 1851. 

So instead I will look to the present. The places I might go, the things I might see and the adventures I might have. I found out there is a City Circle Tram that tourists can use for free all day, its hop on - hop off service allowing tourists to discover Melbourne. How exciting! I have found out that public transport uses a preloaded card called a myki. We have the same thing here in the West Midlands called a Swift card, but here the buses still take cash too. There's a special myki card called the myki Explorer for tourists, but I have to say the information on how it works exactly is a bit thin on the ground. You buy it and it gives you "one day’s unlimited travel on trains, trams and buses in metropolitan Melbourne", but it doesn't say if you can buy it the day before and then activate it. No doubt I'll find out soon enough. 

Then there is the food and drink. The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival is on when I am over. Even if I don't get there I might get to one of the many wineries in Victoria's five distinct wine regions. Pinot and Shiraz to name but two. I have to say the Shiraz I drank in the UK recently was out of this world. 

I hope to see something of the nature, it would be a shame to go all that way and see nothing, even if it is only a few birds that are a novelty. Looking at the Visit Victoria there seems to be a lot of nature to see, some of it in places that don't appear to be so far from home. Rhyll, Tenby and Anglesea (they can't spell!)