Buchart Gardens and a homeless encounter (17 November 2024)

 

Bev wanted to do to the Buchart Gardens.  Fortunately the rain had stopped and the  sun peaked through the clouds every now and again. There were two ways to get there; either on a tour (very expensive but not available) or take public transport (much cheaper).  Conveniently, the bus stop for getting the bus that took us there was less than a 15 minute walk away. 

It was a pleasant ride through the suburbs which were not too dissimilar to those in New Zealand and Australia.  Single dwellings on a plot of land, except for the most part they were two storied with a basement.   

Buchart Gardens is a very popular tourist destination, particularly in spring and summer.  Even in winter they were very nice.  The leaves had mostly fallen, and they were setting the place up for Christmas.  It was lovely peaceful place to walk around with crowds.  In the tourist season it must be so busy judging by the number of car parks and bus parks. 


A couple of sculptures in the gardens

The bus to take us back was conveniently due a few minutes after we had decided we had seen all that needed seeing. 

The skies had cleared when we arrived back in central Victoria.  As our walk around the harbour had been forestalled the day before due to rain, we took the opportunity to walk to Fishermen’s Wharf.  It was rather pretty with a ferry coming in, seaplanes taking off and getting a better sense of the geography of Victoria. 

Local taxi Victoria Harbour

Houses floating on the water - Fishermen's Wharf

By the time we had done our walk the sun was beginning to go down.  We walked to our bus stop just missing our bus.  Just before the bus stop we walked past a couple of homeless men who talking loudly and then one of them said something to me that I did not understand.  I carried on.  While waiting for the bus this same man wandered into the shelter and apologised for whatever said to me.  For the next fifteen minutes I heard his story.  He had been brought up by a drug addict mother, had been in rehabilitation several times for drug addiction problems, was only allowed one beer a day but he had two before he talked to me, had been in prison, and did not like living in the accommodation for the homeless.  The reason he did not like hostel was that was it was noisy with a number of mentally unwell people.  It was an interesting encounter and while I didn’t say anything (he liked talking) I suspect he just wanted an audience.  The lives these people live are awful and we saw lots of homeless people and many of them had the blank looks of drug addicts.  It was a reminder what awful lives some people live.

We didn’t want to go back in the CBD due to the infrequency of buses,
so we went to a local pub where the music was deafening and the food terrible, but there were few other options nearby and it was cold and damp.




Above are several photos in the gardens

Fairmont Empress Hotel

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Choosing where to go next (28 October 2024)

Image
  Canal St-Martin There is so much to see in Paris, which makes for an almost overwhelming number of places to choose from.   Graham had what he called “crikey” moments where something would just take his breath away.   The Pont du Gard was one of those moments but he had many more so the challenge was to find at least one on our last full day in Paris.     We were keen to go to Belleville which is the highest point in Paris and Graham had picked up a book in the apartment with graphic photos of its former self before and after it had been redeveloped in the 1970s and later.   The view from there on a good day is excellent as you can see the city laid out with its various landmarks.   It   was quite misty when we left but we still decided to go. Parc de Belleville   We entered through the Parc de Bellville and climbed to the lookout point.   The Eiffel Tower was not visible due to the mist but as it was coffee t...
Read more

Frankfurt am Main

Image
Looking toward the CBD We woke early and found that our apartment had a wide and expansive balcony that gave us a view from the west to the east.   It was a nice outlook.     Apartments' courtyard View from the balconey of apartment It was over twelve hours since we had last eaten and Bev wanted breakfast so we went looking for a place in the local area settling on a bakery/café.   The food was carb heavy but it did the trick.   (Comment from Bev: Yum! – there will be a few of these added comments throughout as she edits my blog)   Our tram stop - cycle lane on my right Just before we left New Zealand I had a message from Deutsche Bahn to tell me that the train we were going on from Prague had been cancelled and we had to find another way of travelling.   The website was optimised for German speakers of course so I think the translated version was not as clear.   I thought the easiest way to deal with it was to go to Fra...
Read more

The Causeway Coastal Route (2 November 2024)

Image
Carrickfergus Castle It was very damp when we departed for Derry/Londonderry, taking the Coastal route there.   Normally this would be done when going to the Giant’s Causeway but we had not managed to do so.     The first stop was Carrickfergus Castle about 20 minutes out of Belfast.   It is a Norman castle that was built in 1147 on a rock that has fresh water available.   Over succeeding centuries it was much modified to become the fortress that it is today.   It was a central player in the wars of control of Ulster.   Initially it was the main centre of Ulster but eventually in the 1700 and 1800s the centre moved to Belfast.   Halloween display in the Keep   We paid the small fee to have a look around.   It was interesting to go into a very different kind of castle to those we had visited in France.   The idea was the same but execution was different.     In the main Keep which is the large...
Read more