Around the world in 108 days: March 15 (March 5

March 5 – Melbourne, AUS

Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria. Sadly, we didn’t get to see much of it after we met up with the ship on our return from Ayers Rock. The ship arrived in the afternoon with an overnight in the port; we joined it that night and had an all day Horseback Winery Tour scheduled the following day with the ship leaving upon our return. But from what our friends told us, it’s a pretty nice city with a population of 4,442,919.

Of course, if we can Jet Ski in the rain in Bora Bora, we can ride horses, in the rain, in wine country, in the Mornington Peninsula! It was a shame, because the day before had been glorious. Still it was interesting and beautiful seeing horse paddocks intermingled with vineyards.

We arrived at Horseback Winery Tours, an amazing piece of property reminiscent of horse country in Lexington, KY with the white board fencing & rolling hills. However, I can’t remember any of the Lexington farms having vineyards! Our first instructions were to sign the release form, duh! Then time to gear up with helmets and riding coats. Again I repeat, we encountered cooler temperatures than we had anticipated. Luckily, I had a quilted vest to wear under my riding coat, but the coat zipper was broken so I got wet anyway! Next we were assigned our horse based on our height, weight and experience. My horse was a sweet little lady named Spanky and Rick’s was a fairly tall horse named Gem. We were given a bit of a lesson for mounting and dismounting and the commands for GO and STOP. (I guess the horses spoke Aussie?) Anyway, we were off to our first winery without any problems. As I soon found out, Spanky was the social butterfly of the stables and felt she had to stop and say hello to all her friends in the paddocks we passed which worked out OK because the horse in front of me decided to make it a slow stroll that day. Pretty soon the line was backed up. Good time to learn the “up-down” gallop! Wow, a good thigh workout! It took a while, but we got the hang of it (and paid the price the following day)! The wineries were attractive; very different than Napa. The white wines were OK, but the reds not as good. All in all it was a fun day…a little wet, but the sun did peek out for a short while.

Enjoy the pictures! Cheers!