The Tram Museum at Hawthorn in Melbourne

The Saturday that we were in Melbourne just happened to be one of the days that this museum is open, so off we went...by tram to our destination. 

The museum is located in an old tram depot, which as the city grew and its fleet of trams also grew, became inadequate. 

DH and I wandered around reading the information boards and looking at the exhibits while we waited for the next tour. 

I loved this use of a fibre glass rhino to get the message across to drivers sharing the road with trans! 

A room was dedicated to items that are integral in the background of the tram network.

Some of the beautifully restored trams...



When we did the tour we discovered that the oldest tram was just near the entrance to the museum. It was actually a cable car. These systems were very expensive but the state of Victoria and its capital, Melbourne were quite wealthy due to the gold discoveries. The Melbourne cable cars differed from the iconic ones in San Francisco in that they had a ‘trailer’ in which the passengers also rode rather than the ‘all in one’ style of the SF ones. 

The passenger ‘trailer’ of the cable car tram

This photo shows the ‘trailer’ attached to the front part of the tram


It’s hard to see but the brake lever is in front of the boy

Side view




But my absolute favourite was a relatively recent tram...
It was a tram decorated by 5 Pakistani men and used in the Commonwealth Games in 2006. I found the tram and walked through it before I found the information boards. I thought I’d wandered into a Bollywood film set...I was entranced by the colours and the designs were just so vibrant. Very uplifting!! I couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear as I walked through...

Here’s some of the information on this tram...sorry the photos aren’t very good...

Many of the 20 trams on display at the museum could be walked through and best of all, we could pretend to drive them too! And on the older trams we could use the foot pedal in the driver’s area to ring the tram’s bell...clang clang!! 

Watch out! Look who’s driving the Explosives Factory tram!! 


A lovely trip down memory lane. Of course I have only scratched the surface of the tram networks’ history and believe me it was certainly a chequered history. 

A Small World?

On our recent trip to Melbourne, I saw some yarnbombing as we walked up Swanston St right there in the CBD. The trunks of the trees on the footpath were wrapped up in Christmas colours. So I walked up the street taking photos of each tree. I thought that the photos would be perfect for one of my 25 Days of Christmas posts that I do each December on Facebook. So I made a collage...

Then one of my fellow members from Knitting for Brisbane’s Needy wrote a comment on my post thanking me for posting the photos. Janine went on to explain that the tree in the top left hand corner of my collage was wrapped in her corner to corner crocheted piece! 

Apparently she joined a Facebook group earlier this year and it was this group that called for volunteers to make pieces for yarnbombing. And because I’d taken the photos, Janine was able to see her work in situ so to speak!

 Here’s a closer look at that tree trunk...and I’m also including another tree trunk photo as it shows one of Melbourne’s iconic trams.

Even more Melbourne 😁

Angela commented on my previous post that there is a lot of construction going on in Melbourne and DH and I certainly noticed this...and I took some photos of 2 of the Metro Tunnel work sites. 

So dodging around building sites, including in Federation Square became par for the course and really didn’t affect us adversely at all...local residents may disagree though, lol. 

So in the business district what did we visit?

We visited the Victoria Markets Complex; walking through the wonderful deli area is always a treat for the senses. I didn’t take any photos of Markets but did take some photos of the lovely shops in the front of the complex. One shop window that I loved was Ambience; it was amazing! 

Next door to Ambience was a cafe where we stopped awhile and indulged in coffee and a sweet treat.

I loved the figures standing at the entrance to the store...such fun!

We timed our visit to Melbourne Central to be there on the hour. This was so we could see the famous clock in there ‘doing its stuff’! 

On the hour a section of the clock lowers to reveal figures, including some beautiful birds...there were quite a few other tourists snapping photos too.

The Melbourne Central complex is built within an area that housed an historic shot tower...

So the tower is surrounded by a shopping centre; all restored and saved from demolition. 

Another place in the city we visited was the Christmas windows at the Myer store. Every Myer in our capital cities has the same Christmas windows but we would rarely bother going into Brisbane’s CBD Myer to look; so go figure why it became important to me that I check out the Melbourne store’s windows! Lol 

This year’s theme was ‘Alice in Wonderland’. We had to line up and slowly the line moved along in front of the store.

I will share some more of the CBD in my next post. 

Out and About in Melbourne

On the Friday of our recent stay in Melbourne, the day dawned like this...

Undaunted, DH headed off on the journey to the golf course where the World Cup was being played. 

Dodging the rain by walking close to the buildings, I walked the 3 blocks to a coffee shop on Bourke St to meet a young cousin. We were lovely and warm in the cafe, although I must admit I kept my coat and scarf on, the whole time.



So we yakked nonstop for just over 3 hours. J is actually the daughter of one of my first cousins and her grandmother was my mum’s sister Mary. J remarked how much I looked like her Nana. Well I shouldn’t be surprised that J saw a resemblance as every time I look in the mirror lately, I ‘see’ my mum looking back at me 😉lol.

I messaged DH when I got back to the hotel, enquiring how the golf was going. He rang me back to say the weather was terrible; he was cold and wet through and that he was abandoning the golf and catching the 2 trains back to the hotel. 

So a hot shower and dry clothes were the go when he finally got back. The rain was easing as the afternoon wore on so we decided to go for a tram ride to Harbour Town in Docklands. 

We had gone there 9 years ago when it was also raining. The mall part of the complex had no roof and it was quite unpleasant dodging heavy rain while looking around the shops. Well 9 years later I was pleased to see a roof...plus extensions to the complex.

Like most Aussie retailers, this Centre was pushing the US ‘inventions’, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Any excuse to encourage people to buy items they probably don’t need.


DH and just had coffee and a hot savoury pastry to help warm us up a bit...no retail therapy for us! 

Just near the entrance we saw this post box...perfect fun photo opportunity! 😆

Just making sure Santa knows what to bring 😉😊