Queen Victoria Market & Aquarium

Posted by & filed under Travel Country: Australia.

19/1/2012

Sunny blue skies again – it was great. Mel, Debs and I went to Queen Victoria Market, a bustling and vibrant open-air market on the corner of Victoria and Elizabeth Street in Melbourne CBD. We got there around 12pm and went to the food section first. There was a band playing on the corner and a good crowd had gathered to listen to them. Ganga Giri, they were called. There were only two guys in the band – one was on drums and percussion and the second one, the main guy, did all the talking and played the didgeridoo. Their mixture of reggae beats and rock went down well with the crowd. They were promoting their new album and already had nine albums under their belt.

We carried on to the meat and fish section. My God it was a huge market! At one corner, there were three guys shouting out their wares. I loved the hustle and bustle of it all. We hit the fish market first, because Mel wanted to get some fish to make a fish chowder for dinner. There was a big variety of prawns which I didn’t even know existed, like yabbies-a form of langoustine, blue swimming crabs and all sorts of other kinds of fish. It was a hive of activity and the meat market was just as busy.

After a sushi lunch, Debs and I decided we’d go to the Aquarium, located on the north bank of the river. That set us back 36 AUD but it was worth the money. The penguins enthralled us with their swimming. You could see them darting around like bullets under the water. There were tanks with multi-coloured illuminous coral, which was beautiful. The jellyfish, like ghostly forms, floated around in the water, their bodies nearly translucent.

My favourite were the sea dragons. I’d heard of and seen sea horses before but had never heard of sea dragons. There were several brown coloured sea dragons floating around in the tank, with what looked like branches coming out of their bodies but the belle of the ball was the female. She looked magnificent and was the colour of gold, with bright green “branches” sprouting out everywhere. I’m sorry I didn’t take a photo of it.

That night Debs and I met up with a few of Deb’s friends and went to a restaurant called Golden Bay, where we feasted ourselves on delicious tamarind pork, battered chicken, red duck curry and ocean trout. It was heaven! To finish off the night, we went back to our old favourite spot, The Crown, for another cocktail. We were definitely living it up!