Holiday excursion

I took the family to the Melbourne Aquarium during the school holidays. We went in the morning, in the middle of the week, cause my thinking was that other families wouldn't have shift working dads who had wednesdays off, so it shouldn't be too crowded. WRONG! It was very busy and we had to wait in a pretty long queue in a mid 30's summer day, with our baby who we found out later had a cold. After negotiating the crowd and paying the exorbitant entry fee we finally made it inside and had look at some of the tanks with a variety of fish in them. It was about this time that I realised that fish aren't particularly interesting and to be honest I was more interested in the structural integrity and engineering of the tanks. The baby seemed to be only slightly more impressed than me and was equally amused by all the kids running around. And where there's kids there are prams. Thousands of them I'm sure. We also had one which although essential with a young child is very annoying. There are a number of people that seem to think that it is easier for someone pushing a bulky pram to be able to move around, than it is for them to move their fat arses and take one step to the side.

As anyone who has been to the aquarium before would know, there are a number of levels in the place and although there were escalators, we had to take the (very slow) lifts thanks to aformentioned pram. There just happened to be a number of.....'non-able bodied people' at the aquarium that day and one of them was in the first lift with us in her wheelchair and her carer. As I was standing there holding the pram, this wheelchair bound young woman reached out and grabbed my hand! Now I should state that I'm not a big fan of being touched by anyone, so someone who's intentions I could not read touching me kind of creeped me out a bit. She started to draw my hand towards her face and I believe she was trying to rub my hand on her cheek, which was kind of sweet in an odd sort of way. Then the carer noticed and told her to be more gentle and I drew my hand back. She still reached out again and tried to grab my hand and when I moved it out of range she reached further and grabbed my t-shirt and pulled on it! This time it was my turn to tell her to be gentle and I moved back as far as I could in the small lift and thankfully the door opened and we could all get out.

The aquarium itself is a very interesting place and had it been less busy we would have been able to take more in and read the info about the fish etc, but it was very hard to get to some of the smaller tanks, for crowds of children and fat parents. The highlight was the 'Oceanarium' which is on the bottom level, where the tank extends over head and and pretty much all around you. This tank has huge sharks and stingrays and all sorts of fish who's identities are a mystery to me. My daughter and wife seemed to like this area as much as me. It is also a bit of fun trying to find the exit in that place as well. After escaping and stopping in at Southbank we headed home.

It was also my mum's 60th birthday so we went out to a nice chinese restaurant for dinner while the sister in-law baby sat. A pretty great day overall. Apart from baby being grumpy, the crowds and the heat.

NB. I just wanted to make it clear that I have nothing against non-able body/mental people (don't know the politically correct term) and if an able bodied person had done the same thing to me in that lift it would have equally creeped me out. Fat people however..... ;-)