I collected a print from the Photo Shop in Port Melbourne. Left that in the car. But it felt like a good day for a walk. So the car stayed and I walked north, toward the city. It's only 4km. I knocked off 2km's on foot; then trammed it to the Melbourne Exhibition Centre (in Docklands). Then I photo-walked the city. All pics were taken with the one small 35mm-lensed camera over a handful of hours. I made my way up to Bourke Street Mall and lingered till nearly 9pm to try to photograph the (how many hundreds must there be) Christmas lanterns illuminated against the evening sky. It takes so long to get dark when you're in a hurry!
Melbourne conveniently showered us with summer evening rain providing some neat reflections too. Afterwards I took the tram back to Port Melbourne. Following instinct to know when to hop off as I've never taken that route before and now it was completely dark.
Stepping onto the platform I opened my maps app and the clever thing offered "Directions to your parked car" as first option. So I clicked that, finding it was parked only 300m away. I hadn't even told it where i'd parked. But it knew. How good is that!
A merry, blessed Christmas, everybody!
Everyone's getting in the last minute shopping.
Melbourne Town Hall, all wrapped up for Christmas.
Gingerbread Village!
Long line for the Gingerbread Village
The rapid art of making bicycles, Swanston Street
Bicycles (not yet complete) in a row
Girls and horses, horses and girls!
Priorities!
iphones and Ice creams, double trouble at Fed Square
What would we do without them?
Santa's Ferrari (maybe the reindeer are in the back)!
Some kind of street life. Christmas time must feel so hard for many.
For others it's a purfect world!
Catching a beautiful new multi-coloured tram
Why are they taking so long?!
Wouldn't be Melbourne if it didn't also rain on a sunny day!
Hundreds of lights!
Instant candid of this guy. Then I handed him $5 donation and he gave me a "free" fidget spinner and reindeer gear. Just one of so many great youngsters donating their time to a good cause. There is hope.