And finally the Australian portion of my Honeymoon Scrapbook.
After several days in New Zealand (see last post). We flew to Australia to see John's family and friends.
While we were there John also wanted to show me some of the unique sights of Melbourne. One day we took the train into downtown Melbourne. The train arrived at Melbourne's iconic Flinders Street Station on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets. That's the building in the center photo below with the beautiful arch and nine clocks showing the next time of departure of each train line.
 |
Clockwise from the top left above is John standing by a boat we rode in down the Yarra River which runs through central Melbourne.
Then moving right the glass and steel dome pictured in the top and middle right photos with the balloon and brick tower is inside a mall where we had afternoon tea. I don't remember which mall it was but I do remember having yummy towering tall scones with jam and cream, a giant clock and this view with the tower and the fun toy balloon. The brick tower is a real old (no longer used!) shot tower. They kept it in place and built the mall around it.
Our first weekend in Australia we had two receptions planned. We rented a tux for John and I wore my wedding dress.
While getting ready for them I had a mishap with John's Mum's iron and burnt a hole in my wedding dress. Eek! Somehow I managed to not fall apart (outwardly anyway) while we scrambled to locate a fabric shop to get something to patch it with. Somehow, even though it was a Friday afternoon and lots of shops were closed then, we found some lovely lace fabric that looked remarkably like the lace on the dress. Thankfully the hole was near the bottom in the center front so I was able to applique a couple of pieces onto that area in a way that covered the hole and looked balanced and almost like they were meant to be there.
 |
| Here is a zoomed in look at one of the patches at the bottom right front edge of the dress (not the train) taken from the right page below. |
 |
| The first reception was at John's parents' home for family and close friends. |
John's Mum made the cake part of the beautiful little cake and probably most of the other delicious food we ate. (She also made a larger cake for the church reception the next day.) She had a lady from their church do the icing on both.
 |
| Here is a better view of it. I was delighted to see that it was the rolled kind of icing. It was made with marzipan and maybe fondant or royal icing or something like that. It was rolled out smooth and draped over the cake. I first saw pictures of that kind in magazines when we were planning our wedding. I thought they looked so pretty and posh. (Our American cake had a fluffy butter-cream type of icing in case you are wondering. The bakery we used didn't do rolled icing.) |
The cake part of this cake was fruitcake which, John said, was traditional for Australian wedding cakes. That tradition seems to be changing from what I saw online just now. Anyway, it was not like what most Americans think of when they think of fruitcake. It was dark, dense, moist and mostly raisins. It reminds me of where the Beloved, in Song of Songs, says to her Lover "strengthen me with raisin cakes."*
 |
| The second reception was Sunday after the morning church service. |
 |
| John's Mum sent me this picture recently from the church reception. |
After all the festivities, we took the train to Gippsland in Eastern Victoria to spend a few days with John's brother and his family.
 |
| They live out in the country. The critter in the top left photo on the fence railing is, I think, a wild possum. |
They took us to this stunningly beautiful beach, called Ninety Mile Beach, a bit over an hour or so from their home. It was summer there, being in the southern hemisphere the seasons are opposite to here, but it still felt cold to us even on the beach. I love how clean Australian beaches always are. I wish (more) American beaches were like that!
We also had a trip to Healesville Sanctuary that specializes in native Australian wildlife.
 |
| The animals pictured above: Left page l-r top row: unknown little bird--that you have to zoom in to see under the Healesville label, koala, next row: Ibis (?), echidna, next row: me and another lady petting a wallaby, wombat--sleeping on its back; right page top row: kangaroo in the shade, me--trying, unsuccessfully, to hop as far as a kangaroo |
Then it was time to say our goodbyes to John's parents and head back to Dallas.
Thanks for coming along on this meander down memory lane! I hope you enjoyed it too.
Note:
*Song of Songs 2:5 (Some versions just say raisins.) I've heard that raisins were a symbol of fertility. So that seems appropriate for a wedding cake!
