MORNING BATH TIME IN THE YARRA

This post is part of the Waterworld Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footsteps Winged meme.

STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA

The State Library of Victoria is the central library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in Melbourne. It is on the block bounded by Swanston, La Trobe, Russell, and Little Lonsdale streets, in the northern centre of the CBD. The library holds over 2 million books and 16,000 serials, including the diaries of the city's founders, John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, and the folios of Captain James Cook, R.N.. It also houses the original armour of Ned Kelly.

On 3 July 1854, the recently inaugurated Governor Sir Charles Hotham laid the foundation stone of both the new library and the University of Melbourne. The library opened in 1856, with a collection of 3,800 books chosen by Mr Justice Barry, the President of Trustees. Augustus H. Tulk, the first librarian, was appointed three months after the opening.The first reading room was the Queen's Reading Room (now Queen's Hall), which opened in 1859. Temporary buildings built in 1866 for the Intercolonial Exhibition remained in use by the library until 1909, when work began on a new annexe building to mark the library's Jubilee. This new building was the landmark Domed Reading Room, which opened in 1913 and was designed by Norman G. Peebles.

This year the Dome is celebrating its centenary with an exhibition in the Library's gallery and with various activities organised. The State Library is one of my favourite haunts in the City and as well as visiting to consult its collection, I frequently arrange meetings there or have a coffee in its coffee shop.


This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

BOYD MURAL IN SHELL HOUSE

"Shell House" is the headquarters building for the Shell Company, designed by architect Harry Seidler  (25 June 1923 – 9 March 2006). It occupies a prominent corner site on the edge of the city, at Number 1, Spring St. The entry court is dominated by Seidler’s signature incorporation of a large-scale modern art work by Charles Perry, complementing his architecture.

Laid out in Seidler's signature 'S' shape, the building has two lobby floors, two mezzanine floors, 24 office levels and a 300 space below ground car park. It is located at the corner of Spring and Flinders Streets, overlooking parkland, the famous MCG and the Yarra River. It houses the Australian headquarters of Shell and also houses government and private tenants.

High up in the lobby, in one of the most inaccessible and most difficult to photograph positions is a porcelain Arthur Boyd mural: "Pulpit Rock, Bathers and Muzzled Dog", c. 1987. It is very difficult to find out more about this work, except that it was commissioned from the artist by Shell.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme.

BOLTE BRIDGE AT SUNRISE

The Bolte Bridge is a large twin Cantilever bridge in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It spans the Yarra River and Victoria Harbour in the Docklands precinct to the west of the Melbourne CBD. It forms part of the CityLink system of toll roads that connects the Tullamarine Freeway from the northern suburbs with the West Gate Freeway and the Domain and Burnley tunnels to the Monash Freeway and the south eastern suburbs.

The bridge was designed by architects Denton Corker Marshall and was built for head contractor Transurban by Baulderstone Hornibrook, construction taking three years from 1996 to 1999 and costing $75 million. It was named by Jeff Kennett, for former Premier of Victoria, Sir Henry Bolte because of its linking the West Gate, Monash and Tullamarine Freeways - projects commissioned or completed by the Bolte Government.

It is one of the largest balanced cantilever cast in situ box girder bridges in Australia. The superstructure is built as two independent bridges of variable depth, prestressed concrete box girders, separated by a 1.15 m clear gap between the structures.The bridge features two 90 metre high silver towers, situated on either side of the roadway at the midpoint of the bridge's span. These two towers are an aesthetic addition by the architects, and are not joined to the main body of the bridge. These towers are hollow, and feature access ladders to a small roof top hatch. Until locked and surrounded by water, these towers were a popular target for urban explorers.

It has four spans with two main spans of 173 metres and side spans of 72 metres, giving an overall bridge length of 490 metres. The bridge supports six lanes of automobile traffic. Access is prohibited to cyclists and pedestrians.

This post is part of the Scenic Weekends meme,
and also part of the Sunday Bridges meme.

FLINDERS ST, WINTER

It started raining as I was walking to work the other day, but fortunately I had an umbrella with me and the rain didn't interrupt my walk or my photography... This is Flinders St, looking East with the Flinders St Station clock tower visible in the distance.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Weekly TopShot meme.

MELBOURNE STREET TREES 40 - WATTLE

Acacia pycnantha (Golden Wattle) is Australia's national floral emblem. It is a native tree which flowers in late winter and spring, producing a mass of fragrant, fluffy, golden flowers. Although wattles, and in particular the Golden Wattle, have been the informal floral emblem of Australia for many years, it was not until Australia’s bicentenary in 1988 that the Golden Wattle was formally adopted as the Floral Emblem of Australia. The date of gazettal was 1 September which was marked by a ceremony at the Australian National Botanic Gardens which included the planting of a Golden Wattle by Hazel Hawke, the Prime Minister’s wife. In 1992, 1 September was formally declared as "National Wattle Day".

Golden Wattle occurs in south-eastern Australia from South Australia’s southern Eyre Peninsula into western Victoria and northwards into inland areas of southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. It is found in the understory of open eucalypt forests on dry, shallow soils. It is naturalised in areas within all the southern states of Australia as well as South Africa and California.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

CITY CIRCLE TRAM

The City Circle tram service operates within Melbourne's central business district. The service operates in a circular route passing major tourist attractions, as well as linking with other tram, train and bus routes in and around Melbourne. Trams run in both directions approximately every twelve minutes between 10am and 6pm Sunday to Wednesday and extended hours, 10am - 9pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Clockwise service: Flinders Street > Harbour Esplanade > Docklands Drive > La Trobe Street > Victoria Street > Nicholson Street > Spring Street > Flinders Street.

This post is part of the Signs, Signs meme.

WALKING TO WORK

A wintry cold morning does not prevent many people from walking to work along the Yarra River, and some even feel quite warm! Look at how the man in the pink top is dressed and compare him to the rugged up woman on the left!

This post is part of the Waterworld Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme.

HARDWARE LANE REDS

Hardware Lane is a small lane in the Melbourne CBD, Australia. It runs roughly north-south between Bourke Street and Little Lonsdale Street. Restaurants and ski shops are located on the street, as well as hairdressers. The lane is closed to traffic between 11am-11pm and at night live jazz entertains visitors to bars and cafés.

Named after Hardware House in the 1920s, Hardware Lane was built on land formerly occupied by Kirk's Horse Bazaar, a horse and livery trading centre built in 1840 by James Bowie Kirk. Dynon's Building at 63-73 Hardware Lane is a set of four warehouses designed by William Pitt, the designer of some of the finest gothic revival buildings in the city including Princess Theatre.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

SPIRAL MURAL AT WINDSOR PL

This interesting "Spiral" mural is located at Windsor Place, at the corner with Bourke St in the City. It is on the wall of Society Restaurant, which you can see in a couple of the photos. I wasn't too keen on it the first time I saw it, but it kind of grew on me...

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Monday Murals meme.

THREE VIEWS OF SANDRIDGE BRIDGE

The old Sandridge Railway Bridge has been given a new lease of life as refurbished pedestrian bridge over the Yarra River. Here are three quite different views of this old bridge. One looking towards the West, another looking up under the bridge, and one looking South, from Banana Alley Wharf.

This post is part of the Sunday Bridges meme.

SCENIC EMERALD

Emerald is a town and semi-rural locality in the Greater Melbourne area, Victoria, Australia, 44 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district, outside the urban area. Emerald is located in the scenic Dandenong ranges between Belgrave and Cockatoo. Its local government areas are the Shires of Cardinia and Yarra Ranges. At the 2011 Census, Emerald had a population of 5,813. Emerald also includes Cardinia Reservoir, Melbourne's second largest reservoir.

Part of the attraction of living in Emerald are the wide open spaces and marvellous views. One can live in a rambling house, have several sheep, cows and horses in the paddocks and of course dogs!

This post is part of the Scenic Weekends meme.