Back to Melbourne, St Kilda and the Great Ocean Road

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Kate and I returned to Melbourne and organised a weekend trip to Perth for ten days time. I left her to her studies and checked back into the YHA in town. I put my Ipod in and went for a walk, on the south bank of the Yarra I spotted a river boat cruise so got on that and enjoyed the views of the buildings and bridges from the water. The best bits were seeing the botanical gardens and the area of stadia. Melbourne has the Etihad stadium, the Rod Laver Arena and The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG or The G). The MCG looked very impressive so I got off the boat upriver and went for a stadium tour. The G is home to both cricket and Aussie rules football (AFL) and occasionally soccer. On the other side of Melbourne they are currently building a separate stadium to hold soccer games. The MCG has a capacity for 100,000 people which it always fills for the AFL Grand Final at the end of the season.

Although the MCG is the largest modern stadium in Australia it has a long history as a cricket club, it was founded in 1853 to be the match site for the Melbourne Cricket Club and hosted the first inter-colonial cricket matches between English colonials in the 1850's. It also hosted the first game between an England team and the local Victorian XVIII on New Year’s Day 1862. The Englishmen wore coloured sashes around their waists to identify each player and were presented with hats to shade them from the sun. Some estimates put the crowd at the MCG that day at 25,000. It must have been quite a picture with the new 6000 seat grandstand, coloured marquees ringing the ground and a carnival outside. English captain Heathfield Stephenson said that the ground was better than any in England. The Victorians however, were no match for the English at cricket and the visitors won by an innings and 96 runs.

Inside the ground are some huge paintings showing the site as it was used as in cricket ground in 1864. The Melbourne Cricket Club still continues today and usually has a 15 year waiting list to join as a member; members get priority seating and use of the clubhouse.

Because the ground is used for both Cricket and AFL they have two sets of turf that are carted in and
checked for level and quality. They house 4 sets of goal posts for AFL and 8 creases for cricket. Beneath the stands they have many conference centres and practice areas for sportsmen, there was an underground carpark and changing rooms which were bare at the time and the bathrooms were being
refitted when i visited so didnt get to see them. Its a magnificent building and many photos show it on Grand Final day where it is packed to the brim with people dressed in their team colours.

When i returned to the hostel that evening i got a text from Kate saying that every thursday night she
goes out to a student bar/club called The Nott and I should come along. I take the train and bus over
to her halls and we get dressed up for the night. One of the benefits of being friends with a girl is that you get to meet their friends 😊
Kate introduces me to Summer, Heather and Amy, three Canadians that also live in her halls. We have some drinks at halls and then walk over to The Nott. Its a big place with three buildings each having a bar
inside and in the centre is a large outdoor seating area. Its full of Monash students. It was a really
fun night, I spent most of it chatting to Heather who was really lovely. We drank a lot of goon, which is a staple in Australia. You know at supermarkets you can buy boxes of cheap nasty wine, its basically that, but teenagers drink it like ours would White Lightening. My friend Tim told me a fun game to play is Goon of Fortune where everyone stands in a circle around the spinning washing line and bags of goon are attached and the line is spun- whoever it lands on has to drink.

The following day Kate tells me the university has given out free tickets to go watch an AFL game at
the MCG and she managed to get me one, result. I look online at the rules so I'll have an idea of whats going on and in the evening with Summer we catch the train over to the stadium.
At the G we watched the Melbourne Demons take on the Brisbane Lions. Apparently the Lions are much
better than the Demons so everyone was expecting a walkover. Conversely the opposite happened and the Demons dominated the whole game.

I think I'd better explain how Aussie Rules (or footy as its known) actually works. Each team has 18 players and 4 rolling substitutes that change whenever. They play on a cricket oval and its kind of a cross between rugby, football and netball I suppose. The players carry the ball in their hands and can only run a few paces before they must either pass it or bounce it on the floor (the ball is like a slightly rounder rugby ball). The way they pass the ball is by punching it to each other (throwing not allowed) or kicking it to each other. If one player kicks to another and he cleanly catches it, he makes a mark and can have an unimpeded kick. This means the most spectacular thing is players kicking long into the goal area and their players jumping and making high catches. In slow motion it looks really cool as these tall players jump along side each other and battle in the air to make the catch. From this point they shoot at goal for points. There are four goal posts with no top bar- players aim to kick between the two middle posts for 6 points or if they go between the other posts its 1 point. The game is split into four half-hour quarters. Kind of like Gaelic Football according to Kate. Hope that makes sense.

Kate, Summer and I thoroughly enjoyed our evening at the stadium, it was a great atmosphere and despite the stadium feeling empty there must have been 30,000- 40,000 people present.
We went to this game on a friday night. Kate and I decided to stay in a hostel in the city because this
weekend was an important date in the Australian calendar- Anzac Day weekend. Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries.

The streets were very busy with people, we visited a bustling market by the river selling art and crafts.
Just outside the market was a bloke dressed in a red tracksuit talking on a microphone. We took a look
and he was a street performer, really funny guy who did acrobatics. I got picked out of the crowd to
assist him in his final trick where he lay three of us down head to toe and did a handstand walk over
us, then backflipped about six times to make his way back to the start. Kate got it on video so il have
to upload it to my facebook soon.

From Federation Square all the way to the Anzac memorial there was a parade. It consisted of war
veterans processing by foot or in old cars and army vehicles. Modern serving regiments were also parading. It was a really nice day of celebration of heroes from Australia's involement in war, as well as national pride.

For the rest of the day we looked around the shops and went to the cinema to watch When In Rome. I'm a bit of a fan of chick-flicks (probably since living with Kate last year). It was an entertaining romantic comedy set in Italy.

Kate returned back to her campus for more studies which left me to explore St Kilda and the Great Ocean
Road. I took a tram 6km south of the city to St Kilda which is a small seaside town; its a bit like Blackpool, an old holiday destination for locals. It has old piers, a wooden theme park and theatres, with a hippy vibe at its quaint markets and handicraft shops.
During the Edwardian and Victorian eras, St Kilda was a favoured suburb for Melbourne's elite, and many palatial mansions were constructed along its hills and waterfront. Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, St Kilda served a similar function for Melburnians as did Coney Island to the residents of New York City. Densely populated postwar St Kilda became Melbourne's red-light district, home to low-cost rooming houses. Since the late 1960s, St Kilda was a bohemian area of Melbourne, home to artists, musicians and many of the city's subcultures, this gives it a really fun feel.

The wooden theme park looks really cool with its entrance area. Luna Park is a big head with the mouth
as the entrance. It was built in 1912 and continues to be popular.
St Kilda has a long beach front where people walk their dogs, jog or cycle along the promenade. What I
loved was the relaxed feeling of the place, compared with the hubub of the city which is visible in the
distance.
From St Kilda I wanted to travel onwards along the Great Ocean Road (also known as the Surfcoast Highway) which is exactly what it says- a long coastal road that begins at Torquay and travels 400 kilometres westward to finish at Warrnambool (where Airbourne are from!).

I found a leaflet about a surf tour that left from Torquay to go along some of these south facing beaches on the Great Ocean Road. I rang them up and booked it, when I hung up I got a text from Summer saying her and Kate where going to a theatre in St Kilda that night to watch a special showing of two classic surf films back to back. It was only a 15 minute walk away so I joined them that evening and we watched Big Wednesday (1978) and The Endless Summer 2 (1994). I loved how in The Endless Summer 2 they surfed the break I went to in Fiji the month before! I would recommend both of these two films not just if you're into surfing.

I was picked up from my hostel the following morning and taken to Torquay where i met Stuart, a young
english guy who had set up the business a few years before. I had signed up for a group tour and surf guide but no one else had booked so I had a 1 on 1 lesson which helped my surfing a lot. The spots along the coast are great for waves. Bells Beach is a world famous spot as it holds the annual Rip Curl Pro Surf & Music Festival. As early as 1939 surfers from Torquay made their way to Bells but access was a considerable problem until 1960 when Torquay surfers and Olympic wrestler Joe Sweeney hired a bulldozer and cleared a road along the Bells cliff from the Cobb & Co Road, where the concrete wave now stands, down to the beach. He charged one pound per surfer to recover his expenses, what a good bloke!
Around Bells Beach is where Australian surfing really took off, especially with the invention of the mini-malibu board in the 1950's (a shortened version of the longboard, between 7- 8 ft). Now every easter people flock to Bells to watch the upcoming pros.
Mick Fanning won this competition back in 2001 as a wild card competitor and has gone on to become the current ASP world champion (sorry getting carried away, enough surf talk).

Since I was the only person there on the surf tour I had a trailer in the campsite all to myself. This was a static camper van with a cabin stuck on. It had a TV with some classic VHS films, my friend Mike has always
gone on about how great Point Break is so I watched that... and loved it! Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze in a crime action film with Surfing and Skydiving thrown in. It even features Antony Keidis which I found hilarious. The film ends at Bells Beach too!

The following day some more people turned up for a group lesson, they were beginners and stayed near
the shore whereas I found a reef point break further out on the corner of the bay. I love surfing by myself, its therapeutic and gives me time and space to think. I caught one of the best waves of my life at this break- a right hander that just kept peeling beautifully and right in front of all the beginners! It must have gone on for about 20 seconds, amazing!

Before leaving Torquay on the return I checked out some of its many surf shops. It had a whole surf
factory outlet complex where I bought some shoes and jumpers to deal with the coming cold.
I caught a lift back with the beginner surfers who were a bunch of english backpackers. I got back to Melbourne when Tim messaged me asking if I fancied a beer at his local; so i caught the train over to his where I met his friends and took part in a pub quiz. I dont have much general knowledge skills but I felt like I served some purpose as I knew the answer to the question, What is the name of the Queen's Scotland residence?
Tim said we have to have a proper catch up when Im back from my weekend in Perth so I look forward to that.

The next day I met up with Kate to start our next adventure together- Perth.

Tune in next time to hear how we conquered Western Australia! C

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Comments

[Quiche]

Irish Invasion!
Chris, I feel like I've taken over your last few blogs! Sorry about that, I invaded your travels big time, eh!? :P