Off to Melbourne

We've been to Australia three times, and so far we've spent a combined total of twelve months and one week on this continent without ever once visiting the second largest city; Melbourne. Something's got to give.

If you've been reading this blog for a while then you'll know that Melbourne and Sydney are like a pair of bickering siblings. What you might not realise is that they get along so badly that neither of them would concede to allow the other to become the nation's capital when Australia became a federation in 1901.

So as a last resort, the nation's capital became Canberra, which was chosen because it lay roughly halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, thus limiting the degree of offence either city could take at the decision. All of this reminds me of that parable in the bible where the two women claim to be the mother of the baby and, because DNA testing's not an option, the judge decides to split the baby in half to settle the matter, (only if you look at the journey time between the Capital and the two cities, Canberra is actually quite a bit closer to Sydney, so perhaps that's why the Sydneysiders are so bloody smug about something; perhaps it's that).

Anyway, it's 1020 km from Sydney to Melbourne (just a bit less than Land's End to John O'Groats, without so much as the toffee shop at Moffat to break the journey), so we'll be taking the flying kangaroo rather than the hopping Honda, a 1.5 hour flight being preferable to an eight hour drive.

And when we get there, we'll see whether the Sydneysiders are right that Melbourne's not worth bothering with. I've been researching the highlights of Melbourne and discovered that most of them revolve around cake and/or coffee. That's us sorted - see you on Sunday.