Madre & Padre invade Melbourne - A Day in the City!

After working towards this trip for 4 years now, Madre and Padre Cashman have finally made it to OZland! Yay parentals! It's pretty cool to have them here and for them to be able to see our life 1/2 way across the world.  Now as much as I would have liked to join the parentals at the start of their trip, I was busy with work and moving into our new place! Mom and Dad started up in Port Douglas in QLD and had a great time with beautiful sunny weather. They saw the rainforest (walked the same trail that Twinnie and Drewseph and Andrew and I walked) and saw the Great Barrier Reef. They then went to the Northern Territory and saw Uluru (Ayers Rock) and went on a camel ride (shout out Chester!) I would have liked to follow them around to document their adventures but alas, I had to wait until they got to me in Melbourne.

Poor Madre picked up a cold as they headed to Uluru and she felt pretty terrible by the time they made it to Melbourne. She was a total trooper though and armed with boxes of tissues, she ventured out to the city on their first full day here.

We stopped first at PSC so they could see where I've spent the last 4 years of my life (I'm sure I've spent more time there than at home, sigh). We had lunch at the food court on Southgate and then took a river cruise down the Yarra. I'd never been on the Yarra before so it was quite exciting. We saw great views of the city and even grabbed a picture of the PWC building for Peter! (Hi Peter!)

Our little boat was called the Grower and I forget how many bridges we went under but it was heaps. There were some really old bridges as well as some funky new modern designs. We went all the way out to the Bolte Bridge which was cool as I've only ever driven over it. A lot of the bridges were quite low... literally, at one point dad stuck his hand up above him (while sitting down) and touched the underside of the bridge. And while we were out at the Bolte, the tide had surged and on the way back the captain had to take the smoke staff and hatches off the roof and almost had to have the males in the boat move up front to keep the bow of the boat low enough to make it under the bridge... literally made it by a couple of inches. Pretty cool!

After our super fun river cruise we wandered into the city to check out Melbourne's laneways. We stopped at my favourite place, the Little Cupcake store and got a box of goodies. See how much Madre loved them? Actually, I think Padre loved them more... guess whose "little" cupcake is the big one? He he he.

We walked around to see Fed Square and iconic Flinders Street train station which was crazy busy as always.

To end the night we took Mom and Dad (as a Christmas present from all of us kids) on the Tram Car Restaurant. Anna and Ron took me on this tram car for my first visit to Melbourne and I thought it would be a great way for Madre and Padre to see more of the city. Dinner is cooked and served on the tram car as it makes it way around the city. The food was delicious (even though I sprayed the entire front of my shirt with my meal... tight quarters and me being clumsy) and we had after dinner drinks to top it all off. The tram made its way down to St. Kilda and Port Melbourne where we saw Luna Park and the ocean and the cake shops. Yummy!

Merry Xmas Madre and Padre! Hope you had as much fun as we did!