The Melbourne Museum

We got up at 6:30 am on the day. Determined to make the train this time. It was a Saturday, and the trains come less frequently, so missing out 8:06am train would be kinda awful for our 'early' start, since it takes over two hours to get into town.

Michael was very good about it. Here he is making himself coffee.

We were on the station at 8am! And the train was on time (shock horror!).

The train was very full. We were hoping that not too many people would be interested in catching the Saturday at such an early hour, but not so! Do not be fooled guys! Many people DO get up early on Saturday!!
We didn't get to sit together. I managed to get a seat next to the pram, which Eli stayed in, and the rest of us were in the middle of the carriage. Fortunately the children all stayed fairly good till ri-ight before we got to our stop.
From the train we hopped up the stairs and across the road and caught a tram. The maroon ones are free.

I love these trams. They don't smell bad, and they are all old and shiney!

Malachi was chuffed because he had to stand, and Hadassah was happy because the top part of the window opened.

Phebe not so happy as there were 'too many people'.

This photo has a greeny-yellow path cleaner on it. The children had never seen one before and it was a topic of conversation for the rest of the tram ride.

This is across the road from where we got off the tram. I was fascinated with the straightness of the road behind Malachi there!

We had lunch in the park (what's the park called? I have no idea. It was just a park. There was a wedding there as we walked back after the visit, but I didn't take any photo's of it.), and the children were more interested in chatter than eating.

Here is another shot of the park. It was...nice. The air was pretty clean for the middle of the city, the par itself was clean, and it was nice and warm.

I was quite enchanted by the rock bridge near the fountain. I asked Michael to take a photo of me with it in the background.

And here is a closer one with Hadassah in it.

Here is another fountain, and in the building behind Phebe they were having a women's expo.

In front of the women’s expo was this enormously shiny car, that simply begged a photo!

Here we are approaching the museum.

And the first thing we saw was a huge shark trying to eat a school of fish!

And the second thing was a a whale!

We were advised by the tour guide to head upstairs firts, as they were doing imaginations boxes. up there, so up the stairs we went. On the way past we saw some dinasours.

Everyone but Mummy and Eli decided to do an imagination box.

While the others were organizing their boxes, Eli and I went for a walk.
Eli loved the mirror. It kept him busy for all of two minutes!

And the next thing that caught his attention was an interactive board that made moises and had bright lights.

Meanwhile the boxes were taking shape!
Here is Phebe's:

Malachi's:

Hadassah's:

Another of Phebe's:

Eli deciding after brief thought he did not want to make a box, just play with the props:

 Michael's:

 
Another one of Malachi's:

Another of Hadassah's:

And by this time Eli was bored and so was Mummy, so we dragged them away...to look at more bones!

This was an interesting little room that got smaller as you got to the back,

And in the above photo you can see Malachi leaning against the wall. In the photo below you can see what he was doing!

Oooh creepy disembodied arm and hands!

On the way to the next exhibit we passed these HUGE turtle shells! I was looking at them thinking what awesome garden features they would make!

Here is Pharlap! Unfortunately the children were uninterested in a huge horse, so we moved on.

Sewing machines!!

Another one the children showed little interest in - a carriage.

They liked the little men who wound the wheel to make the pages turn in this exhibit.

And then we were in the recreated area of 'little Lon' where the really poor people lived in the old days in Melbourne. The children looked into everything.

TINY room!!

A toilet?!

 Michael liked the book area. It took a little bit to get him away from this area.

 

At this time Eli was confined to his pram, as he was at various intervals of the visit. It just had to be done!

Through the little windows the children discovered photo's! Malachi thought this was awesome!

Our coat of arms.

Eli listening to a gramophone.

A really pretty window!

Luna Parks roller coaster!

An old fashioned cinema!

A bluebird? Haha! Hadassah kept saying, 'its not a car, its a bird!'

 We headed outside into the children’s part of the zoo at this point. For the life of me I cannot find the photo's I took of here, but it was pretty cool. There were little holes in the walls all over the place for the children to crawl though, whilst the adults had to walk around, and there were larger than life bigs and animals for the children to climb on, and there was a lego section, which kept Eli entertained for ages!
More bones!

Now we are down amongst the dinosaurs!

Hadassah was interested to know dinasours even came in small sizes!

And Eli was chuckling as he stomped on the glass above the fossil.

They had this huge area devoted to bugs, beetles, butterflies and spiders!

Hadassah put on a brave face.

Phebe quietly freaking.

Malachi looking at bug guts,

Eli looking at an ant farm.

Here all the children got to see the ant farm from the inside.

(Phebe didn't like it, she gave me a hurt look because I made her go in.)

Next was the sealife section.

I like this one! The room was actually dark, so they timed it just right.

Hadassah and Phebe kept asking me id the squid was dead!

Next was a huge room full animals. They children were awe inspired because the animals were all dead! Michael liked that the computer screen told about each animal and if they were endangered or safe.

This fish was actually alive!

And these were motorised robot dinosaurs!

HUGE snake!

They had an outside section, of which I cannot find the photo's, but the interesting part is they had a two hundred year old chimney that was all that was left of a really old house that was bunt of black Saturday.

This was just outside the outdoor area. This stump is bigger than Michael!

This is the aboriginal section.

This funky thing moved in waves and lit up with different lights as a recording told about the Aboriginals dream time.

Here we have the exibit that showed examples of the Aboriginals tools and whatnot.

And finally, just before we headed out we had a brief brows around the gift shop, though we decided after a little bit that it was rather expensive :/
Once out of the museum the top priority was food, so we sat in front of the huge glass wall, and ate, and fed the birds.

I loved the look of this building behind Eli there.

As we were sitting waiting for tram (we had a ten minute wait as we arrived just in time to see out tram leave) I was looking at the tram lines, which, as Malachi pointed out, looked just like spider webs!

On the tram back to the train it was less full so we were all able to sit down.

We also got to the train station in good time. It was only a five minute wait. The fence here is about six feet high, but as you can see, the view of the Yarra on the other side is nice.

We were slightly concerned about the amount of people waiting with us, but at least we were definitely on the right platform this time!!

Despite our worry, there were enough seats for us all, not only to sit down, but to sit fairly close together, too.

Chips and dim sims when we got home, then baths and bed.
Another lovely outing finished.