The long drive to Melbourne & back

Just back from Melbourne, a 1700k driving trip either way from Brisbane (!). Beautiful weather, wonderful Saab 93 cabrio, and glorious country – some pictures from the trip are available on MobileMe.

The main reason for the long drive was to show our visitors from New York, Bill Duckworth and Nora Farrell around the country – especially the outback and some wonderful towns on the slow drive back to Brisbane, including Rutherglen, Katoomba and Bellingen.

In Melbourne, we stayed in the glorious Paramount Apartments overlooking the city.

Bill Duckworth gave lectures about his work at RMIT and at VCAM (Victorian College of the Arts & Music, UniMelb). Here's a video of his lecture from VCAM's cross media workshop (to VCAM's Mark Pollard – thanks so much for the hospitality!):



We also went to SIAL (RMIT's Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory) where Bill also delivered a lecture, but also got to tour their facilities with Lawrence Harvey. Of note was their wonderful studio 'pod', a purpose-built room-within-a-room that looks incredible:

Lawrence and Bill – inside The Pod.

Bill & Nora out front

Thanks to Lawrence, Bill, Nora, Jenny, Glyn, Margaret, John, Mark, Sue, Ian – and the Saab – for a great trip and wonderful memories of Melbourne and the Australian outback.