Victoria (Australia) 2008 - All Image Descriptions

I used the “gap” between university and work to travel to Melbourne a third time. This time, after having taken trains from Dortmund to Istanbul, then having spent about six weeks in Turkey, then three weeks in India, my emphasize in Australia was not on travelling to many places, but on catching up with friends. Being with them in Victoria felt like coming home.

	Dog statue This was in Swanston Street, if I remember correctly. Having Christmas in summer does not stop Melbournians from setting up a Christmas tree in early November, as you can see in the background.
	Exercise on Yarra River Rowing on Yarra River with my friends from Watsonia was one of the great highlights of my third visit to Australia. Some of our gear got wet, but nothing broke. Five years before I already liked this house.
	Summer season Summer, the beach clear of dogs... the best time for being in Melbourne.
	Rowers The man in the front shows what steady rowing exercise can lead to. Unfortunately rainy weather preventing me from getting somewhat more of a routine.
	Funny sign on capital city trail Melbourne Girls’ College Caution! Students with long boats crossing at path ahead
	Ducks crossing Just like the famous kangaroo warning signs.
	Bats ...as seen from the Yarra River (rowing there for the second time).
	Eureka Tower In the background there's the finished Eureka Tower, which two years ago had still been under construction.
	Dangerous dam Funny, how one (missing) letter can change a sign's meaning.
	Kangaroo A curious kangaroo looking at me.
	Great Victorian Bike Ride 2008 After the Great Western Australian Bike Ride 2006 and the Great Victorian Bike Ride 2003 this was my third organised ride with Bicycle Victoria. By chance I even met someone I knew from the 2006 ride.
	Mountain view Here we're heading towards the Grampians National Park.
	Cyclist flag
	Low clouds
	Lake Bellfield According to an information board this reservoir was officially opened in 1969 and can hold 65,000 acre feet (80.2 Mio. m³, if my calculation and the ratio given in Wikipedia are correct) of water. Obviously a lot less water is being held now, but it was still enough for a swim.
	5 km TO GO The proper way of using the expression “to go”...
	Lake without water Lake Bolac was not a small lake, but shallow... and Victoria has been in a “drought” for several years now. Instead of “drought” some speak of “climate change”.
	Avenue of Honour This is an avenue in Ballarat with trees planted for men from the area who fought in World War I. There is a historical picture and some information about Ballarat's Avenue of Honour in Wikipedia.
	Eureka Stockade A miniature of the Eureka Stockade, “one of the most significant events in the evolution of Australian democracy”, in Ballarat's Eureka Centre.
	Sacred Heart Cathedral Near the end of my stay in Australia I could re-establish contact with a friend from Melbourne, who had now moved to Bendigo. Thus I had a chance to round up my experience of Victoria by finally seeing its fourth most populous city. Even more so than Ballarat, Bendigo has quite a few pretty buildings from the era of the Victorian gold rush. This Cathedral was build later though, between 1897 and 1977.
	Alexandra Fountain
	VICTORIA Queen of Earthly Queens 1837 - 1901 Erected by the Citizens of Bendigo A strangely linking element of this trip...
	School Building
	Gold mine and tram
	Rainy finish My last days in Watsonia were full of rain... as if the sky was crying. There had never been that many rainy days in a row during my full year in Australia, back in 2003. A popular saying about Melbourne is: “If you don't like the weather in Melbourne, just wait half an hour.” This may be true most of the time, but not in these days of 2008.
	Quantas planes My return to Dortmund started with a domestic flight from here, rainy Melbourne, to Perth. Subsequent stations where Singapore, Mumbai, and Istanbul.