Melbourne Trip part 3

 In case you are wondering about parts 1 and 2 please be patient.  I decided to compose part 3 while it was still in my memory.

The day began foggy as shown by Ingrid's photo from her apartment.

That caused me to take a couple from our window.

We began our day  with a trip to the Victoria Markets.  (A useful landmark for later in the day!)

A Silver Gull flying around inside the meat and fish area seemed a little unusual.

A guy using a bowsaw to open up a carcass possibly a little less so.

The beer shop in the deli area still had a good supply of interesting beverages.  I got 6 beers, earning a 10% discount.  Thus far the one I have tried is a White Russian Stout.  Not much Stout about it, other than the 6.5% ABV but it was quite pleasant to drink.  I couldn't pick the coffee or cherry that had been added!

I have now tried the other two beers I bought.  Boatrocker IPA is definitely not "love in a canoe" at 6.2% ABV and very fruity to drink.  Most pleasant and brewed in Melbourne.  The third brew was the sort of drink which fostered the phrase near-beer at 0.9% ABV.  However it was, like the original Swan Light a very drinkable and pleasant tasting drop.

The fruit and veg area was quite deserted at 0730.

Then we headed for the Western Treatment Plant.  we did take some photos of traffic on the way but cannot, thus far find the camera.  No idea what has happened to it perhaps fell out of the car somehow?   In fact the camera was still in the car: it had fallen under the front seat but ended on a ledge rather than the floor where I had searched 3 times!   Whatever: the main story was appalling signage on all the roads we used.

This began when turning off Dudley St towards the West Gate bridge.  The instructions from Google Maps said "Use the right 3 lanes to turn right onto Docklands Hwy/Footscray Rd/State Route 32"  said so I looked for a reference to Docklands Highway.  Nothing visible - the signs were about Footscray - but as there were 3  lanes I took it.   OK so far.  I made it on to City link, but couldn't see any signs about Geelong and the one I followed to the M1 took us back towards the City.  Hit gridlock but eventually (perhaps 20 minutes later) got back to the Docklands Highway.  

This time we got confused by the first sign to City Link just talking about Eastern Suburbs to didn't take the turn.  That took us through the docks into Footscray and more gridlock.  That turned out to be due to some idiot in an over-height truck getting jammed under an over-low bridge.  Road closed.  So off we went using Frances iPad to navigate and eventually got to the Princes Highway, which I knew eventually became the M1.  That probably took another unnecessary 20 minutes.  

All good for a while (of course until we were committed and couldn't do anything else) and then we hit gridlock for about 5 kms which took 30 minutes to work through.  These photos are about midpoint in the jam.

That was due to a collision - which seemed to be a car rear-ending an old truck.  Lots of Plodmobiles but really only 1 lane of 6 blocked: just all the baboons gawping at the Plodmobiles.  By this stage the car was able to tell us we had averaged 5kph for the trip and 8.5 l/100km - I'd expect 5 l/100 for the trip.

The lovely lady at the Werribee Info Centre - who I had spoken to the previous day and knew we were coming - was getting quite concerned by 1100 when we hadn't turned up.  Any way she gave us a key and lots of good advice and off we went.

There was a small  difficulty with the first gate we tried (we didn't try quite the right twist/pull combo to get it open) but into the next gate.  Straight into lots of birds.  The overall list (55 species) covering 4 checklists is here  What became Bird of the Day - Brolga - was seen within 5 minutes of getting through Gate 4!  They were flying so I didn't get a photo.

We trundled around seeing many birds including Red-necked Avocet  ..

.. and lots of Pied Stilt (in just about every pool/pond/ patch of water.

There were many birds of quite a few species at this outflow.

Then I saw 3 grass-parrots on a fence.  Could they be Orange-bellied Parrots?  They could, but were in fact Blue-winged Parrots: still only my second ever sighting.  An excellent species, but possible at Mallacoota so less desirable than Brolga.  Crap photo taken through dusty windscreen.

Some late cygnets

Even the Fairy Martins were obliging in perching on the road (spotted by Frances).

Various ducks.

So about 1545 we headed back towards the Visitors Centre.  After a few kms  on the M1 there was a sign which appeared to send us into an expensive Service Centre, that I knew was a bout 2 km short of the VC.  On coming out we had a debate about which way to go but I was sure it was towards Melbourne that turned out to be correct.  Hand back the key and off we go.

Very easy driving until about 2 km before the West Gate Bridge.  Then back into gridlock.  Coming off the bridge there were some signs about Power St (which I think we had visited in the morning and others about the Airport which we didn't want so ignored.  Suddenly all the signs started talking about St Kilda!!!! checking later we should have taken the Airport turn off - even though there was no mention of "City" or CBD.  

We stopped and asked in a bar how to get back to the Vic markets and were given some instructions but they seemed not to work.  So we stopped again and the guys were able to point to St Kilda Rd in the distance.  I knew where that went so we took off.  Apart from not being able to get into Swanson St I was able to guess my route "home".  We probably lost an hour because of their stupid 😡😡😡😡 lack of a $5 sign.