Twenty of us had a great morning at the refurbished Police Museum in Spencer St. After nearly an hour there, many were pledging to come back for a fuller visit and bring their grandkids for the interactive detective games.
The museum traverses Victorian police history since colonial days, with plenty more about police horses and their training and the K9 dog squads. None of us knew that to train police horses to push gently into unruly crowds, the horses are given a human-sized rubber ball to nudge from one end of the police stables to the other.
Naturally the museum includes the many dramas and tragedies of police work, with special emphasis on the bombing of the Russell Street headquarters in 1986, our first real introduction to the modern world of terror attacks.
We were joined in our tour by two burly police in their iconic semi-riot gear, typifying the friendly atmosphere at this gem of Melbourne experience (and free, what’s more).
Afterwards half our party trudged off to lunch at the Royal Melbourne Hotel in Bourke St., securing a quiet table in what used to be the bluestone prison there. How appropriate!