Australia: Canberra, Melbourne

We’ve been busy and are flying out to Ayer’s Rock in a few hours, but here’s a quick summary from the last few days.

June 26/27: We stopped over in Canberra (photos) for a night on the way from Sydney to Melbourne, saw the Australian Institute of Sport (photos) and got a little shopping in.

June 28:We took an overnight bus to Melbourne and saw the city. We visited the Melbourne Aquarium (photos) in the morning and took a tour of the city in the afternoon.

We visited the Game On exhibit at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, “playing our way through video game history.” Like, Ataris and Commodore 64s and stuff.

St. Patrick’s Cathdral (photos) was stunning, we attended the Saturday evening mass there.

June 29: We went on a bus tour of the Great Ocean Road for the day, lots of great scenery (and photos)!

Sydney felt more like New York, but Melbourne feels so much like Toronto with the trams (street cars), the Royal Exhibition Building (Exhibition Place), the ugly highway by the waterfront (the Gardiner), the new concrete Federation Square (Dundas Square), the old Queen Victoria Market (St. Lawrence Market)… at times it feels like there’s a one to one relationship between the two cities. It’s a shame we can’t stay longer, but we’ve only 12 days before we’re scheduled to be back in Sydney.