Aug 23: It's our last day in Melbourne. Our flight was scheduled for the late evening, so we decided to spend the mild, sunny day outdoors, walking the city.
He headed west, down Flinders Street across the bridge to Flinder's Park. There were very few pedestrians around, though a class of elementary school-aged students sat in front of an unusual 4-legged, colorful sculpture, drawing.
Just past this garden, we found the site of the Australian Open Tennis Championship, with the Rod Laver Arena in the background.
We hiked on, making our way up to the Fitzroy Gardens, home of Cook's Cottage, (re)built in this location to commemorate the voyages of Captain James Cook, who is credited with discovering Australia.
Strolling through the park, we found that several trees had wide bands of metal wrapped around their trunks, about 3 feet off the ground. James asked (and answered), "You know why they put these on here? They're to keep the rats from climbing up and nesting in the trees."
I looked closer. There was a small leafless branch sticking from the underside of the band, close to where James stood. "Look," I said in mock alarm, "There's a rat's tail sticking out right there!" and I pointed dramatically right next to James.
He screamed and jumped back, as if a rat where climbing him. Of course, I laughed hysterically. James, realizing immediately that I was joking, laughed too. Goran, who hadn't taken any of it in, just stared at us. "What's going on with you?" he asked.
We were too disarmed from laughing and gasping for breath to explain. Eventually, I calmed down enough to explain how I'd scared James; but, Goran was not amused.
His scowl reminded me of years past, when Sharie pointed at a stick on the ground in a San Francisco park, exclaiming, "Look, a snake." That day, except for the laughter, Goran reacted with the same scream and jump, and Sharie got the cold Bosnian shoulder the rest of the day. He has no humor when it comes to mocking his phobias.
"Oh, come on, Goran. It was funny. James even thought it was funny. Look ... hey, James, grab that branch and I'll take a picture of you."
And he did. What a sport!
On, then, to the Melbourne Museum, where we mainly gravitated to find a bathroom. We walked through the immense lobby, depicting an aquatic enactment of the food chain in mid-air.
From there, we headed toward the city center, into China Town, for a nice lunch.
After our meal, James and I split from Goran to the Federation Museum on Flinders Street, to see the Tim Burton Exhibition. I'd seen the sidewalk structures everyday we'd been in the city, and wanted to explore what was inside.
Inside was the dark, warped world of a slightly mad, yet sentimental cartoonist-writer-film maker who never left his childhood fantasies in adolescence. The rooms were dark and spooky, the walls crowded with drawings, televisions played his movies and film shorts. Sketch books and scripts, costumes and props from his films, detailed miniatures of well-known characters, and a round tunnel with holes in the walls where guests were encouraged to peer into holes in the walls filled every bit of space in the exhibition rooms.
We headed back out and met up with Goran. James went back to the hotel and Goran and I spent the last couple of hours walking the alley-sized streets off the south bank, spending the last of our Aussie money to enjoy a sushi dinner.
It was a wonderfully relaxing evening and a fine ending to a vacation jammed with sights and wonders, laughs and adventures. Absolutely, this was the greatest holiday of my life!
