Advertisement
Published: April 22nd 2009
Finally we said goodbye to Gotcha! and boarded a very late flight to Melbourne via Brisbane. Flight was pretty uneventful but neither of us managed as much sleep as we'd hoped. It was a bit of a shock to the system getting on a flight in Darwin, where we'd finally got used to the heat and humidity, then getting off in Melbourne and feeling cold enough to actually put on a jumper!!!! God help us when we get to New Zealand and home!!
Arrived in Melbourne mid-morning to be greeted by Auntie Jean and Bob, luckily Matt recognised her instantly so we were in the car and off before we had chance to feel tired.
We headed straight back to their house in Mount Martha, getting a glimpse of the city and some of the surrounding suburbs on the way. Many entertaining stories about family Hart and all their mischief whilst they were younger!
After some lunch Matt managed to break through the sleep-barrier for more catching up over a good cuppa while i popped off for a much-needed nap before heading out for dinner at a nearby chinese restaurant where we ate more than enough food!
Our first
day in Mount Martha started late and we hopped in the car and had a scenic drive through the mornington peninsula up one of the big hills to Arthur's seat to get a good look at the beautiful views over the city and the beaches!
After a day of leisurely sightseeing we went home to freshen up before having a lovely meal at a hotel in town overlooking a beautiful sunset over the sea!
The following day Jean and Bob were kind enough to drive us over towards Wantirna where we were spending the rest of the time with our friend Kev from Asia, so we grabbed some lunch at the big shopping centre nearby and then bid them farewell after being sent away with a collection of old photos to embarrass people with when we return to the UK!
We settled into Kevs place and waited for the big reunion when he got home from work! We popped into town for a bite to eat and a few drinks and headed back to his for a relatively early night in prep for all our sightseeing!
Our first day in Melbourne was well planned, KD tours (kev's Discovery
tours as we have christened it now) are very well organised. We hopped into the jeep (Matt loves this car!) and went into the city for a day of local knowledge!
First stop: The Shrine anzac memorial building. It a beautiful building with tons of information and artifacts around plus we happened to be there on National Greek Day which meant there were people around for services etc which was added interest. There is a balcony running around the top of the Shrine so we went up to get a look at the city, luckily it was a fairly clear day if not a little breezy!
Second stop was a walk through the city, the boys on the BIG SCREEN in Federation Square (nothing special its a constant stream of filming) And a look over the Yarra river, before we went over to the skydeck tower. We went up to the main observation deck which was great to get a view over the whole city, saw the MCG, Flinders Street Station, Fed Square, The Shrine and the city in general. We didn't opt to pay extra and go out onto the glass-bottomed cube that sticks out from the side
as we could see pretty much everything from the normal viewing deck, including the people inside said cube jumping around like fools!! Lastly we had a walk through the CBD and a few of the shops before heading back to Kevs.
Second day of tour guide Kev's itinerary we headed up to the dandendong hill/mountain to view the city from up there, although a little cloudy we saw a lot of stuff, got a completely different overview of the city than the one we got from the skydeck. After that we headed to St Kilda and Port Melbourne to have a look around and saw some MEGA jellyfish at the harbour. Took a look at the spirit of Tasmania ship and had a walk around the area which is very pretty!! Driving to the beach we passed Albert Park which was housing the formula 1 grand prix! i have to say the noise was impressive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I lose track of what we did when from this point onwards so forgive me if i get a little mixed up..we just managed to cram so much in i lost track of the days! We had a real Aussie BBQ with kangaroo
which was delicious!!
OF COURSE a trip to Melbourne for me would NOT be complete without a visit to the one and only Ramsay Street! We drove past Channel 10 studios but saw none of the 'stars' hanging around..and then drove to the ACTUAL STREET!! Now disappointingly for all you other big fans..the street is not called Ramsay street at all.. it is called Pin end court or something..but the houses are there and it is bizarre standing outside them..the only evidence of it being a filming sight is a guy in a high vis vest sitting in the car watching our every move and some yellow barriers stacked at the side of the road (obviously to stop the hoards of screaming fans when they film there!!haha)
We attended our first AFL game, Collingwood is our chosen team on recommendation from KD himself!
This of course meant Matt finally reached his Mecca! The MCG is pretty impressive..massive structure very busy and sport sport sport naturally he was in his element especailly coming face to face with the legend that is Don Bradman...(in statue form of course!!)
We were lucky enough to get some members tickects from one
of Kev's mates Ben so they were much cheaper than anticipated!The game was Vs Adelaide and i have to admit rather exciting!! It is a cross between rugby, football and catch! lol!The hardship of course being the rather good looking young guys wearing vests and short shorts!!! But the game itself is good, exciting and at times a little violent!!hooray!
There was also something exciting about hearing football crowd one minute and the formula 1 cars in the next..only in melbourne!!
Drinks flow throughout the game and then all the collingwood fans head to the local pub to sing the team song again and again! Despite the fact that collingwood lost, it was a nail-biter of a game and spirits were high!! We met up with another of Kev's mates and headed into the city for some drinks. We started at the crown casino and mingled with some of the formula 1 crowd and the girls dolled up to the nines looking for a rich man-great for people watching!! Then we headed to Chapel Street to a little bar belonging to another one of Kev's mates (he has many allies and tour-associated contacts!) Good night had by all!!
Our next move was the Great Ocean Road, we only took a day but it wasn't an absurdly early start and once we got our of city traffic there was some beautiful views driving along the ocean road all the way to the Twelve Apostles. It hasn't become overly touristy there, there is only a small car park and visiotrs centre which means it isn't overly crowded but there is only around 7 of the original 12 left. (yes yes just big bits of rock in the sea but quite stunning all the same!) Fish and chips on the beach topped off the day (they even had real vinegar for the chips!) The seagulls like the scraps too and the boys had plenty of fun jumping off the wall and climbing back up..as boys do!
Kev unfortunately had to give up his tour-guide duties and head back to his real job so matt and i were left to our own devices during the day to relax a bit, watch some dvds and make plans for the rest of our travels. We decided to take advantage of Kev's generosity a little more and used the car to drive to
Philip Island and have a long-awaited surfing lesson!! the weather was pretty shocking and on the beach having the pre-surf talk and warm-up (my feet were FREEZING!!!) But once we got into the water we soon warmed up! We had a Dutch instructor and there was us and an Irish guy learning. We started out by learning how to catch waves into shore and then re-grouped to learn the strategies for (attempts at) standing up!We had a great time trying and we both got very close to standing but didn't quite get up there fully which was a little disappointing but can now definately apreciate how fit you have to be to be a good surfer-we were exhausted!
We were mean't to go an see the Penguins coming ashore but the weather hadn't improved at all so we decided to head home and give it a go another day instead of freezing any more!
We ALSO had an encounter with one of Kev's neighbours who came over and encouraged an impromptu drinking session and later revealed she was in a weeks-worth of neighbours OLD SKOOL in the days of the Willis family etc etc..it was very bizarre..PLUS she later
told us she was also Toadie's acting coach-loving the neighbours connections!
We also encountered Our second and equally exciting AFL game once again Collingwood but this time Vs Melbourne. Hooray this time they won although Kev was unable to watch with us as he was at work. If we had not been leaving Melbourne we could seriously have got into the whole AFL scene regularly.
We also managed to get back and see the penguins at Philip Island, we sat around for quite a while waiting and after a while they began emerging from the sea..we didn't see as many as we'd hoped but it was fun to watch some small groups coming up the beach. Cameras are banned but i managed to sneak a few pictures as the penguins were walking up beside the footpath!
Our second to last night in the city was spent over a meal and a few drinks and then the boys ended up staying up until 5am having 'man-chats' and then Kev was over an hour late for work the next day. A final farewell over some pasta and then off to the airport for our flight to Cairns.
Now
some of you may wonder why we are going to Cairns, when the original plan was to move on to Sydney next, but tax rules etc mean that it is better money-wise for us to stay in Oz over 6months and instead of spending a ton sightseeing etc we have opted to do another 4 weeks of work before we do Sydney and Canberra and then move onto NZ. not exactly what we had wanted but the better option in the long run! So not goodbye gotcha until May!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.205s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0796s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
