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Published: March 25th 2008
fireworks on the Yarra River
part of the Moombah festivalBack in Melbourne again, we set up the caravan annexe for Alister’s visit and collected him from the airport. Had a great week in Melbourne - the Moombah festival was on when we arrived so we went down to Southbank on the river Yarra to see the fireworks and wander around the festival sideshows. Visited the Queen Vic market and Alister did a tour of the T elstra Dome. Wednesday we did a day trip down to Werribee Open Range Zoo, and out to Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula, the head of Port Philip Bay. Then the highlight for Alister - 4 days of Grand Prix at Albert Park! Blu and I managed one day, the 2nd practice day, an interesting experience but not really our cup of tea. Plus it was 39 degrees the day we went, and windy!! Just too hot! Alister loved it - even though all 4 days the temperature was in the 30’s!
Blu and I had booked ourselves onto a 4 wheel drive course with Victoria 4wd club, so we went off on Thursday night for our 3 hour theory session, then on Saturday we had a full day practical course- this proved to
Flinders St Station at night
my favourite railway station be heaps of fun - once we got over our initial nerves! A real buzz and we learnt heaps! Our photos don’t really do it justice - those hills were steep!
On race day we took the quiet option and went to Ripponlea, a majestic old mansion in one of Melbourne’s leafy suburbs - a grand old home with magnificent grounds.
Alister’s visit went by so quickly, his last day with us was St Patricks Day, we all did a tour of the MCG and then visited the new Australian sports museum at the MCG, which opened a few days before we went. All very interesting, and a great place to be on another 38 degree day! Called into a pub to have a drink for St Pat, then we went to the Telstra Dome to see the Warriors play Melbourne Storm - but a bit uncomfortable - we lost, and it was still 35 degrees at 7pm!
Would you believe the day Alister left, the temperatures dropped to mid 20’s! We had a busy day getting the caravan ready for storage, as we decided not to take it to Tasmania (the cost of taking it on
the ferry and the winding roads). We spent the day before our sailing up in the Dandenong Ranges, which was quite near the caravan storage park, and had a ride on “Puffing Billy, which is a well known steam train trip through the ranges. It is a really nice trip, not spoilt by commercialism, and it goes through some lovely native bush.
Next stop Tassie! It was nice to leave the horrendous Melbourne traffic behind - we were pretty much over it by the end of our stay there!
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