Spring!

Most days I try to get out of the office for a quick walk at lunch time. For months now it hasn't been a very pleasant prospect. Melbourne has a reputation in Oz for a dreary, wet and cold winter.

This year it has really lived up to that reputation. In buckets!

We count the start of spring in Oz from 1 September, until today the weather has not been very spring like.

Today was different! For the first time since last autumn I left the office without my coat.

It was beautiful!
So nice I turned toward the Carlton Gardens.
So nice and sunny that I broke one of my rules (don't use a phone camera).


I just had to record it because the forecast from tomorrow afternoon is wintry again the rest of the week.

In the Gardens is the Royal Exhibition Building.
 
On my way back I paused to show how close the gardens are to the city (you can see the window to my office in this piccie).

Hiding in the Carlton Gardens.

If you walk from the centre of Melbourne into the Carlton Gardens you can wander through graceful avenues of elm trees. Then at the end of the avenue you notice there is a massive fountain. Your eye is drawn further and you realise there is a grand building in the Gardens. The Royal Exhibition Building. Like the Eiffel Tower in Paris this structure was built as a temporary affair for an International Exhibition. To be precise the 1880 Exhibition when Melbourne was the richest city in the world (thanks to 30 years of gold-rushes) and wanted to show off. Well they demolished half of the structure at the end of the exhibition but a last minute change of heart saved the rest.

The Royal Exhibition Building had a brief break from its normal duties in the early part of the 20^th Century when it acted as the first home of the Federal Parliament of Australia (our second and third Parliament buildings are in our Federal Capital Canberra). Since then it has returned to its normal duties as an exhibition building, It is said to be the only grand 19^th Century exhibition building still fulfilling its original function. When I was there between Christmas and New Year it was temporarily closed so they can lay a new floor. I had a peek inside, to give you an idea of the size those are trucks and forklifts down the other end. Not a bad landmark to have tucked away in a garden!