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Published: February 9th 2009
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Melbourne hmmmm.
It was a mixed bag to say the least. We arrived into Melbourne at 5 in the evening, foolishly thinking that the hottest part of the day was around midday, only to discover that the hottest part of the day during a heat wave tends to be dinner time - woohoo - let’s bake J
Walking out of the lovely air conditioned airport into the evening sun felt similar to walking into a very hot sauna (fully clothed and carrying rucksacks). Once we arrived at our hostel we were very happy to have booked a nice double room all to ourselves. We had a huge fan and a nice big window, but no air-con which was a bit tough. But the common room had a huge TV and some cosy couches and plenty of tennis to watch because the Australian Open was on at the time, so we weren’t exactly starved for entertainment.
The first evening we ventured out to the supermarket at around 9 pm hoping it would be a bit cooler- it wasn’t! We were both exhausted after about 5 minutes of walking so we decided just to get a few essentials in the shop
and not try to carry back to many heavy bags. Essentials: Bottle of Coke, Chocolate, Crackers, Hummus, Frozen Pizzas….. Just necessities
The second day reached a temperature of 45 degrees C, so needless to say we didn’t venture to far out of the hostel. We did make it out to the pub up the road for a nice big pub lunch, who can be bothered cooking in that heat when somebody else can do it?
We decided to brave the heat that evening and head into the city, 10 minutes away on the tram. We knew straight away before we even reached the city centre that we were going to love Melbourne. It is hard to describe why, but there is a really nice atmosphere with so many different types of bars, cafes and restaurants and China town running across the middle of the city and every type of shop you can imagine, all mixed in with some gorgeous old churches and some super modern sky scrapers.
For the first few days we mainly sat in during the day and relaxed and read our books and went into the city in the evenings for dinner and
a walk around, but even at 8pm the temperature was still in the late 20’s so we had to keep buying ice-creams to keep us cool
We got around to see most things despite the heat. They were showing the Australian Open on the big screen in Federation Square and it consistently attracted crowds of 500 plus. On the night of the final there was hardly an inch of unoccupied space and the atmosphere was amazing. The free tram which circles around the city centre made it very easy to visit some of the tourist spots such as the docklands, the Melbourne Museum and Royal Exhibition Centre in Carlton Gardens and Parliament House.
The public transport in and around the city centre was very impressive. They have one ticket called the Metcard which is used on trams and buses and trains and on a Sunday you get all day travel for $3. We really made use of the ticket getting up early on Sunday morning with the promise of some cooler weather. We went to Queen Victoria Market first and we were blown away by both the huge number of stalls and the variety of items on
sale. We picked up some very very very cheap fruit for our lunch and spent over an hour navigating just a small section of the market. Next we headed out to St. Kilda to spend the afternoon enjoying some $2 strawberries on the beach. The beach was absolutely gorgeous and it seemed like St Kilda had everything anybody could want. The harbour and the beach on your doorstep with the city just 15 minutes away and so many cafes and bars you would never have to dine in the same place twice. In the evening we took a stroll along the banks of the river Yarra and took in the views of the city at night.
On our last day in Melbourne we were again grateful for the cooler weather as we got to pay a visit to the Queen Victoria Gardens, Botanic Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance and we also watched the parade through China town to celebrate Chinese New Year, which had been delayed by a few days due to the heat. We wanted to spend our last evening watching the sun set over Victoria Harbour from the tallest building in Melbourne - the Eureka Tower.
Yes we love heights! But unfortunately the cooler weather had brought along some cloud and the view was hampered on almost all sides by thick cloud, so they had closed the viewing deck and we were out of luck. We weren’t too disappointed, instead we went for a nice dinner and headed back to pack our rucksacks once again. This time as we packed, we were hoping it wouldn’t be long before we were unpacking for good in Sydney. Well, not for good, but for a few months at least - and we can’t wait to get settled in one place for a while…….
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