Neighbours, Races and Cricket in Melbourne

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After a short early morning flight from Christchurch we arrived in Melbourne, our first destination in Australia, but not before a small drama - while we were waiting for our flight Scott decided to quickly look in duty free, and when he came back it was time to board the plane but he had somehow lost his boarding pass! Cue him running back to duty free while Vic was having a mini stress at the gate, he then came back but didn't have his boarding pass, but luckily they printed a new one at the gate so we were allowed on the plane- Scott is still adamant he put it back in the bag after duty free but it is clearly lost!

We got the airport shuttle to our hostel in Melbourne which was very central and close to the CBD and as it was too early to check in we put our luggage in the store room and went out to explore the city. It was quite cold but pretty sunny so we jumped on the free tram to the suburb of St Kilda which is about 15 minutes outside of the city centre and on the beach. Unfortunately it wasn't warm enough to go on the beach but we had a walk around this pretty seaside town, which had tons of bars and restaurants, before coming accross a travel agent and sorting out the rest of our Aus trip, including our transport (greyhound bus) and a few trips further up the coast (Fraser Island and Whitsundays sailing) which should be good. We then had some lunch before heading back to the hostel to check in and get ready for a night out which we had planned a while ago- Neighbours Night! Yes, very cheesy, but something we had to do while in Melbourne, the home of Neighbours and Ramsey Street.

Neighbours Night takes place every Monday night, with various Neighbours 'stars' making special appearances followed by a quiz and various competitions where you can win lots of Aus trips, and a live band. We got the shuttle bus from our hostel to the pub where NN was taking place, and when they started showing recent episodes of the soap, we both realised we hadn't watched it for about 10 years and didn't know many of the current characters, although we knew the words to the theme tune at least! We arrived at the pub which was surprisingly busy (this is obviously a must do for travellers to Melbourne) and grabbed the last two seats at a table with a group of people from Ireland before the MC of the night introduced the Neighbours 'stars' who would appear that night. We had read that Libby Kennedy usually appears as well as Karl Kennedy and we were quite happy about this as they were possibly the only current actors we knew of in the soap, but they weren't there so instead we had Stingray, Dylan Timmins and Paul Robinson (cast names) - aside from Paul Robinson we hadn't heard of the other two but we had photos with them all and they seemed friendly, although it wasn't the same as meeting the classic actors that we (well Vic, as Scott argues he has only seen the show once...) had grown up watching on screen.

The quiz then started, and there were questions on Neighbours, which we knew roughly half of, plus general world and Australian knowledge, but as per our poor attempt at a quiz in Wellington, we didn't fare any better this time around so didn't win anything! After the quiz there were a few embarrassing competitions which included singing the theme tune to the show, kissing someone for 2 minutes and dancing to ridiculous songs, none of which we took part in but we had a good laugh watching people make fools of themselves! Then it was time for the band. The live band is usually headlined by Dr Karl Kennedy but as it was the eve of the Melbourne Cup and therefore a bank holiday he wasn't able to appear which was a shame, but the band who did play were pretty good and we had had a few drinks so took to the dancefloor (which was busy as it had opened up the the public) for a while before calling it a night and heading back to the hostel.

The next morning we woke up to heavy rain, but as it was the day of the Melbourne cup (which is a huge race day out there, much bigger than Ascot or the Grand National) which we wanted to watch we got ready and decided to go to the casino to watch it and be part of the atmosphere. We had talked about getting tickets to the cup before we got to Melbourne but decided against it as we didn't really have the clothes to wear (suits and shoes for men and extravagant dresses, heels and hats for ladies) plus once we saw the weather we were secretly pleased we wouldn't be standing in the rain all day! So we headed to the casino nearby, which was the biggest one outside of Vegas we have ever seen, it was possibly even bigger than any in Vegas with 3 levels of gaming and sports bars, to watch it on the big screens and put a few small bets on. The atmosphere was really good with lots of people dressed up as if they were actually at the races, and when the race started everyone was cheering so we were glad that we went there. We didn't win but it was a fun afternoon and it made us want to go to the races more next year at home.

After the race finished we headed to the cinema within the casino complex to watch SAW 3D, which we had heard was really gruesome but it was more gross than we could have imagined! It was good though and nice to see a film in the cinema for the first time in ages. We started walking back to the hostel but it was around 6pm by this time and we were hungry so detoured and went to a great little mexican restaurant we found nearby for a feast of margaritas, chilli and burritos (which was full with (wet) people who had been at the races all day so again a good atmosphere) before going back to the hostel around 8pm. We were going to go out after a rest but we just crashed out for the evening at around 9pm.

On our last day in Melbourne we woke up to rain again! But it soon cleared and we started to make our way to the famous MCG (Melbourne cricket ground) as we had tickets to the cricket that day for a one day international with Australia v Sri Lanka. We got the free tram to Federation Square first which is an area in the city that has various restaurants and bars in it as well as the Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI), which had an exhibition on for film and video games so we had a look in there for a while (as it was free) but it was actually really good. It showed how film and video games had changed and evolved over the years and even had some of the old games consoles such as the classic super nintendo and sega mega drive, which Scott was massivley excited about! We spent some time in there playing the old video games before walking to the MCG for the cricket. It was about a 20 minute walk along the Yarra river to the ground and when we got there it was fairly empty as we were early, however by the time the match was about to start at 2.20pm the ground was really busy, mainly with Sri Lanka supporters and just a few Aussies. The atmosphere was really good and we had great seats, plus the sun came out so we had a really nice afternoon. Sri Lanka were first to bowl while Australia batted and after 2 hours it was only half way through the first game, with Sri Lanka still to bat. We watched the whole first match with Aus finishing on 230 and we wanted to watch the second game but it was already 7pm by this time and it had got cold so we left and went back to the hostel.

The bar in the hostel had dinner specials on and a pub quiz so we took part in this, and for the 3rd time in a few weeks, came last again. We now think that maybe quiz's are not our strong point! Although there was a bonus round which involved guessing if a coin would land on heads or tails which Vic took part in and won so we got a free bottle of wine, so not a total disaster. The bar then held a game show type competition like the price is right where you had to guess the price of things which again Vic took part in but didn't win, so after this we headed up to the tv room and watched another film (plus saw the end of the cricket at 11pm- lucky we didn't stay- which Sri Lanka won by a few wickets) before going to bed after enjoying our time in Melbourne and looking forward to Sydney.

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