Aussie Sojourn - Day Two

As I suggested earlier many of the tasks that I had planned for Day 1 had spilled over to the next days due to our slumber but we were determined not to have our ‘need for sleep’ ruin our ‘midtown madness’ anymore (oops! Sorry for the bad pun). So despite not being to get myself to bed any time before well past midnight I had my alarms set for early morning. So though not exactly as early I would have wanted to get up and get going we still managed to wake ourselves up, get freshened up, had a decent breakfast (courtesy Anjali) and get going back to CBD. By now we were quite familiar with the public transport and the timings and thus we arrived in time for the next 505 route down to its last stop, Pehlam Street. Once the driver announced that it’s the end of the trip we moved on to the next part of the journey via the tram. So from the nearest tram station we go the tram and got down at collin’s Street.

So from the bucket list for Day #1 the most important item that was still pending to be picked off was getting ourselves registered for Medicare. The Australian government provides all its citizens and permanent resident access to its health care facilities a.k.a Medicare. Having heard about numnerous instances of how expensive healthcare is on foreign soil, I had already got me and my family insured for any health emergencies for this trip however I wanted to have us on their rolls as well as a fail safe. So when at Collins strret I quickly spotted the Shopping mall housing the medicare office once again thanks to Google Strret view. After wandering for a bit in that mall and asking for directions we did end up at the medicare office where we were courteously welcomed by a host, who asked me my name for appointment ticketing purpose, asked me the purpose of the visit  and guided me to fill up the forms required for it. However I had already downloaded and filled the same while in India and had my task cut short. So we patiently waited for our turned at the lobby. When my name was called out within 10 odd minutes we were hosted to a desk manned by a old lady who took the form requested for our passports and visa copies and left the seat to do the needful processing. She was back in a very short while and updated us that we are done with the process that the cards will be mailed to us at the address mentioned. We cleared some of our doubts with her, thanked her for the services and left. Phew! Two of the major ‘must-dos’ of this validation trip were ticked off; one left – Centrelink.

Now the official work thingy done the next thing to get done was visit the Melbourne Sea-life museum. So again we went to Flinder’s street stop and switched to a tram along the flinder’s street. Once again we hoped off a stop in advance and that meant we had to walk the remaining distance. Though it wasn’t exactly too much far, the weather today was hotter than the previous day and we were sweating as we were hauling Anannya in her pram towards the Sealife Museum. It was especially a bit harsher for Anjali who had dressed up in woolens for the climate we experienced the previous day. Such is life!

Once at the Sea Life Museum front dress, I presented the receptionist with the print out of Annual membership which my dear friend had already booked for us online. She hosted us to another desk, got us to fill up a form, took mugshots and handed us a card each connected to bright orange neck tags with ‘annual membership’ boldly written over it. Basically the annual membership allows you visit some 11 attractions across Aus and NZ for just AUD 115. Considering I was just visiting Melbourne and Sydney I could have covered 7 off it, though I ended up visitng just 5. Nevertheless it wasn’t still a worthy option I would believe and would pray that I make another trip before the card expired come March 2017. Once done with this formality we were ready to take the trip down under the sea to experience a totally different world. And boy! It was truly an out of the world experience. From touching real eggs/shells to viewing different exotic species of fish; from hopping under an acquarium to feel you are deep down at the bottom of the ocean to walking through a tunnel with sharks and sting rays sailing past you, it was totally ethereal experience. Anannya had a ball of a time touching (well, almost) the different fishes across the glass wall while Anjali loved the jelly fishes changing colours as per the hue of the light. The eals and seahorse too were unseen before but the highlight of the museum as far as I was concerned is the huge acquarium set up in an amphitheathre kinda setup. One could take a seat and gaze and the tranquilizing moments of many species of never before seen fishes as they very calmy swim past you unaware or perhaps unbothered about your presence. Viewing them is such a hypnotizing and soothing experience that if somebody could pay me salary for it I could do that for weeks together. However I hadn’t come across the benevolent person who would do that so I had to get my ass moving. We did our lunch at the museum itself and then covered the remaining sections which include a rainforest walk with exhibits comprising of frogs and snakes. From the rainforest we directly moved to the poles which begin with a 5D experience of scrat hiding his nut. Anannya had great fun watching it. We were then escorted to a penguin land where hordes of penguins slide down the ice, took dives in the freezing cold water for their food or simply did the penguin hop. All things done it was time to move on.

Back to the tram stop as we waited for our ride we soaked in the architecture of Melbourne. It isn’t uncommon to see totally hip/techno shapped buildings interspersed with a lone Victorian era block and you wonder which one to admire more. As I was transposed to Victorian time, I saw a tram buggy chugging towards me and it took a firm shake from Anjali to get me back to the present day. So I hadn’t actually been time travelling it indeed the city circle tram that had arrived. The speciality of this tram is that they are still ply the old iconic tram carriages rather than the sterile modern masters, and more importantly they are free, make a round of the city and has a running commentary onboard informing its occupants about the significance of the various landmarks long the route. So we travelled all the way down the flinders street , turned around at he treasury gardens then moving along the bourke and Collins streets moved up to Docklands where the Merbourne Star observation wheel was spotted by my better half and added to our “to –do” list, zipped past the marina and Etihad stadium and back to Federation Square where we got down.

Since we had not yet been to the Melbourne visitor centre as yet, we decided to visit it and climbed down a couple of floors underground to the centre. It basically consists of all the information about Melbourne and surrounding attractions that a typical visitor would need. There were free take aways brouchures for different tours one could take in and around Melbourne and they also had private counters for booking a ticket onto these. So we took a heap of the guides, brouchures and maps and once again emerged to the earth’s surface. We already been to Fed Square the previous day and decided to give it a skip, we crossed the Yarra River over the Prince bridge and arrived at the Southbank. Southbank is kind of a recreational area with tons of cafes and food courts lined along the bank of Yarra river. As you drool over the smell of food and coffee you also get to public sculptures and street art and if you are lucky enough sometimes even artists at work..