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Going west 一路向西

It was the last day of free public transport on 1st February - also the first day of full operation of the Metro Tunnel where our train line could go straight to to the western part of Melbourne through the tunnel, so we took the chance to explore some places.
2月1日是夏季免費乘搭公共交通的最後一天，也是新鐵路隧道Metro Tunnel全面運作的第一天，我家附近的鐵路線可以經隧道直達墨爾本西區，正是探索新地區的時機。

Our first stop was Altona, where the station was only about 200 metres from a beach, connected by a shopping strip with a pedestrian zone in the middle. The layout reminded me of Manly in Sydney when I last visited many years ago. We had lunch at a restaurant which had tables set in the pedestrian zone.
我們先到Altona，一下車即可見到海灘，距離大概只有200米，車站和海灘有條小商店街連接，中間有一小段行人專用區，有些餐廳在那裡擺放了戶外座席，我們就在其中一家餐廳吃午飯。


After lunch we went to the beach, but didn't expect a sudden onslaught of wind once we crossed the roundabout in the photo below. We felt the temperature drop by 3 to 4 degrees almost instantly. We were dressed up for the cooler weather that day but were still caught off guard by such an abrupt change.
飯後前往海灘，沒想到橫過下圖中的迴旋處時，風勢驟然變猛，體感氣温也一下子降了三四度，雖然穿夠衣物，卻不免仍驚訝。


The windy weather was clearly well suited for kite surfing but we could not spend more than 10 minutes on the jetty without feeling battered by the wind!
颳大風正好造就玩風箏滑水（風箏衝浪）的人，但站在棧橋上觀賞，10分鐘就夠了，始終大風吹得人不舒服。





We moved on to a playground by a lake by taking a bus to Cherry Lake. It seemed a decent place for a long walk but our focus was obviously on the playground.
之後我們搭巴士前往櫻桃湖（Cherry Lake），那裡有個湖畔遊樂場，正好讓女兒玩樂，不然沿湖散步也應該不錯。


We spent almost an hour at the playground before taking the same bus route to Sunshine, a suburb where the new rail tunnel would take us directly back home. We arrived there shortly after 16:00, on a Sunday and just under an hour before the closing time of the shops, but the streets looked almost deserted by then. Sunshine was meant to become a railway hub and an employment centre according to government planning, but there seemed to be a long way to go judging by what we saw.
玩了差不多一個鐘頭，我們便搭同一路線的巴士往Sunshine，在那裡可以搭火車直接回家。我們到達Sunshine時才剛過16:00，離商店關門還有一小時，但街道已沒多少人，那區是政府規劃成未來鐵路樞紐和就業中心，但就當刻看，還有一大段距離！

We were really grateful for the free public transport and the chance to be a tourist in our own city, visiting suburbs that we normally have much of a reason to go to.
免費搭車讓我們做了自己城市的遊客，到訪我們難得踏足的部分，是個難忘的體驗！

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