The Tan gets looked at

 Back in the day when I was a runner no visit to Melbourne CBD was complete without a jog across the Yarra and a lap of The Tan.  That is a circuit of track which (I think - it was 25 or more years ago) used to be covered with tan bark.  We went in that direction on Saturday to meet our daughter and the SPs.

I had guessed it would take us close to an hour to walk down Swanston St and across to the floral clock, which I had designated as the meeting point.  In fact it was only about 20 minutes - more to do with it being basically downhill than me being fitter than I thought!

To my surprise the illuminated birds outside the Art Centre were visible in daylight, although not as impressive as after dark (which it had been when we came past a couple of days ago on our way back from Werribee).  Of course the image doesn't show the Ibis apparently walking ...

... nor the pigeon turning round and pecking.
While trying to see some birds perched in a tree I was nearly blinded by the sunlight reflecting off a highrise somewhere in Southbank.
The family turned up - having got a park 50m from the meeting point! - and we set off towards the Botanic Gardens.  Our route through the Gardens is shown in this eBird track.
When the sun glare vanished I had seen some Corellas flying over.  They didn't sound 'right' and on finding some perched in a palm tree that was found to be because they were Long-billed Corellas rather than Little Corellas.  Not helpful as far as Bird A Day was concerned because I had already claimed the species on a visit to Canberra. 
A nearby tree had an Eastern Rosella, which was helpful.

On entering the Royal Botanic Gardens the SPs headed in to the Children's Garden.
This was very good with lots of little paths through dense vegetation for small people to explore but quite self contained so that larger people could keep track of what was occurring.  Daughter found this vegetable garden in there somewhere!
After the young people headed home for a nap we wandered through the main gardens ending up on the Yarra, where we resisted the urge to test the waters (the colour clearly suggested it was still too thick to drink, but was it in fact too thin to plough?).  We wandered along the North Bank to Federation Square where some form of religious presentation was happening.

We got on to Flinders Street and found that where we wanted to go was blocked by road works so we went towards Russell St, and headed up Hosier Lane ...


... which like many (most?) of the Lanes was well endowed with street art.
Indeed it was still being created.
Rutledge Lanewas also very well decorated.

As we were by this time well knackered I didn't suggest going a bit further East to find ACDC Lane.  Next time.



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