Marysville 1

Go east, young men, so they did along with me to the town of Marysville. I'd forgotten about this nice art work at the entrance to the Mullum Mullum Tunnel.

The scenery was starting to look impressive as we motored along Maroondah Highway.

It looks damp up on the mountain, where we are headed.

We approached the town of Healesville.

Oh, care for a little gin?

Oh really. Must we stop at Aldi! Actually, it was a very convenient place to park and find some food to eat in the main street, after Phyllis spent some time in bling shops.

I popped in and added JayCee's name to welcome visitor list. 

The colourful plants were all over Healesville. I believe they are a type of rose.

Just east of Healesville is Maroondah Dam, where we stopped at a viewing point. 

We then hit the Black Spur and Phyllis was driving quite slowly but used the slow vehicle pull offs to let faster cars past. 

The ferns in the sunlight were just stunning.

And here we are at our caravan park cabin, with our balcony looking at the fast flowing Steavenson River. Bird life abounded, especially king parrots. Sue would have loved the location. 

My competent driver being embraced.

A male king parrot.

Who ended up with scratched arms. "Ondrewww, I am wounded!"

The cabin was a bit ordinary and did not pass the finger over the top of the fridge dust test. There were nicer cabins, but Marysville is quite an expensive place to stay, it would seem. I paid the same as I did for a one bedroom self contained flat, with a balcony on the edge of the centre of Sydney, with nice views. 

A relaxing tipple in the evening light for use on Brag Book. 

A (pied?) currawong. 

I felt the need to put something on the tree trunk to indicate its size, so a packet of pocket tissues did the job. It is big trunk. 

The park was fairly quiet on the Thursday night and we were without immediate neighbours in the row. Friday night, the hoards arrived.

The new choo choo line

I had a thought to take a trip on our new Metro Tunnel rail line on Sunday afternoon, but in the morning I wanted to shop at Big W in South Yarra as I had foolishly lost a cap on Saturday. The 58 tram was in trouble, with a city car accident blocking its path. On the appropriate app, it was showing a tram due in 8 minutes, a second 8 minutes and a third in 9 minutes. In ten minutes when nothing had changed, I changed my plan and headed for Anzac Station, to catch the second train to ever run from there with passengers to the city as our new train line opened.

The train was crowded, but not unbearably so. The train arrived on time, yet it took forever to unload and load passengers on, many in baby pushers and plenty of wheelchairs. It was even worse at Town Hall. 

I left the train at State Library and because of the crowding, I couldn't immediately find the lifts, so I used the escalator from the platform to the concourse. As I was almost at the top, the escalator stopped, I think because it was overloaded. I walked the last few steps, and then took the longest escalator in Melbourne from the concourse to street level, I didn't know this and while it was not overloaded, it too stopped soon after I stepped on. I should have gone back down, but because of the people behind me, I walked up. This was getting hard. I paused and someone asked me if I was ok. I replied yes, I just needed a rest. By the time I reached the top, I was absolutely buggered. I leant against the wall for a bit and overheard staff discussing whether it should be called in as a serious fault or just restarted, for the third time. The latter was decided. 

After I recovered I went on to Big W at QV and then uneventfully caught a crowded train back home, again the station being so crowded, I couldn't find lifts. 

While I think Sydney's new Metro Stations are more attractive and have better wayfinding, I think our new Metro system and stations will function well, decades into the future. I was quite impressed with how well it all worked in spite of being opening day and overcrowded by the excited and curious, and it really was a very exciting day. This new train line, connecting two conventional train lines will change Melbourne travel patterns substantially.

Photos of the crowded train stations would be boring, and it would have bored me to take them, so just text in this post.