The apartment and views therefrom

 This will be an on-going post to hold general burble about the apartment and what we see from it!  Lets begin with the logo of the building:

Here is a street level view of St Kilda Rd outside the building, looking towards the CBD.
This is a view from the Winter Garden looking down on the traffic layout.  There are at least 6 'lanes' on each side of the road.  1 Pedestrian lane (could be counted as two lanes as goes both ways); 2 Bike lane; 3 Slip lane i (also car parks in places); 4 slip lane ii (no parking); 5 Through lane for vehicles; 6 Tram tracks.  It is repeated in the opposite direction on the other side of the road.
Here is a view of the building from a side street on the Albert Park side of the road.  I think the arrow points at our apartment.
The entrance to the car park.  It is important to get this right as if you miss it (from the slip lane) you have to go on to Commercial Rd; do a u-turn; back to St Kilda Rd; 400m North to Leopold St; another u-turn (which takes time to give way to the trams) and 300m back to try again.

Once in the airlock of security doors here is the lobby.

Looking from the concierge desk towards the Fawkner Tower lifts.  (There is a second/ lower tower towards St Kilda Rd.)  The hall looks good for reps training with a nice slope, but so far the only exercise I have seen going on here is some Chinese sword-fighting!
A view from the Winter Garden towards Port Melbourne.
War of the Worlds anyone?
Port Melbourne cranes by night.  I need to work out how to take a time exposure so as to get details of the lights on the cranes.  
On the evening of the 14th there was a backdrop of dark clouds which showed the lit-up cranes rather well.  I tried to zoom in on them without opening the louvres but that didn't work too well: I shall experiment next time there is a good backdrop.
The cranes, and which lights are lit continually change.  This is another version from early in the evening.  I don't know what the blue needle-object is attached to!
Looking a bit further round towards the South I realised we could just see the You-Yang range in the background.  Google Earth tells me they are ~50 km away to the WSW.  (We can also see as far as Sorrento to the South: that is 57km, so need binoculars at least to see any detail.)
Looking to the North we have views of the CBD skyline.  We were surprised to find that the spike towards the RHS of the image was the spire of the Arts Centre, rather than, as expected a radio antenna on a high-rise.
A different bit of the City.
Looking out to sea, with the setting sun reflected in the higher building.
In the Fawkner Park post I show a helicopter parked in the Alfred Hospital heliport (which straddles Commercial Rd).  Here is a set of images from the Winter Garden of an incoming helicopter.




I have a Marine traffic app on my phone, which is quite useful at Mallacoota as ships come round the corner.  It is very useful here as the vessels come in to the port.  This is the wide view.
A close ship.
Here is the entry on the app for AAL.
Another view of a ship.
It could become rather addictive (perhaps trainspotting is the metaphor) photographing and identifying the ships as they come into the port.  This is a vehicle carrier "Morning Cherry" which arrived from Freemantle and sails under a Panamanian flag.  EUKOR is the owner, with details in this: not surprisingly (from KOR) Hyundai and Kia feature in the ownership.
On the weekend there were many yachts out and about.

They all disappeared as the morning developed, but in the afternoon reappeared much further South.  I wonder if they had raced to Sorrento and back?

The clouds were impressive in the afternoon.



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