Melbourne and the Bowls Club

Mebourne is a cool spot. We have been here for a few days taking in the sights. The bad weather followed us from Sydney so we haven't been to any beaches, instead we continue with our routine of walking 15 km a day around the city. Our hostel is out of the downtown core in a suburb called St. Kilda. It's a good spot with complete with more cake shops than you can count.

We stopped here for some Sunday afternoon cake and coffee.

A shot of the downtown area.

The biggest advent calender I have ever seen. Unfourtunately there wasn't giant peices of chocolate to go along with it.

Some graffiti. It was everywhere. Except here they don't try and stop it, instead they encourage it. I walked down an alley that was deemed a City of Melbourne artistic site. They must have had 15 people spraying the walls right off a major street.

The Bowls Club

A few days ago Jill (a friend if Rob's from Guelph) amd I decided to take a crack at the great Australian sport of... lawn bowling. Or, as its better know around here as, bowls. Think curling on grass without the brooms. It was great. We had a private lesson from a guy that worked there and a lane to ourselves for three hours. We learned in Australia bowls was a sport only embraced by senior citizens, much like Canada, until about five years ago when younger people took it up as a social event. While we were there there were several office Christmas parties going on. One of the guys there was an Academy Award winner for an short animation movie. I got his picture and then proceeded to loose the memory card from my camera. Everyone loves it - except Rob who doesn't believe there was any way it could have been fun.

Our Coach.

A few gutter balls.

Bowling.

The field... er... court... er...lane. I'm not sure what they call them.

The ball. The inside of the ball is weighted so to have to bowl your ball on a path that will bring it back into the center of the lane. I made the mistake of bowling the weighted side out a few times. Its embarassing.