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Published: January 21st 2009
(Port Phillip Bay from Arthurs Seat Melbourne)
Before I begin telling you what we've been up to in Melbourne I'll let you all know what we did in the final few days of our stay in Perth
On the thursday night we headed out towards City Beach and the Quarry Amphitheatre, an old limestone quarry that has been converted into a theatre. The quarry had been carved out by the prisoners of the time and you could still see their initials carved into the wall (as well as the words "point of no return" which incidentally is one of the last things the groom sees if you get married there!). They had backfilled the quarry to produce tiers of grass seats with concrete backrests. We were here to see Giselle, the tickets that I had brought Stephanie as a christmas present and she enjoyed the show alot, although we both found it a bit tricky to follow the story fully at times.
We spent the friday packing our bags ready for the flight and also went down to Hillary's for one last time where we climbed the lighthouse for a nice view and took the boys for an
ice cream where they mix in sweets with whatever flavour of ice cream you ask for. Very tasty! Since it was 42 degrees outside we were still pretty toasty though and Anne suggested that the boys jumped from the jetty to cool down. We were coerced despite having no swimwear with us which meant we had to jump in fully clothed! We had a good laugh and definitly cooled down! Back at the house we quickly washed the clothes we had been wearing and got them out to dry so we could pack! That evening Andrew, Marion, jack and Laura came over for a dinner of our well travelled chicken bacon and leek pie recipe, although some what adapted ie no mash potatoes! The weather was lovely so we all sat outside and had a great evening that ended our stay in Perth nicely!
The following morning and the last bits of packing complete we headed to the airport for our flight to Melbourne accompanied by John, Ben and Aaron who stayed for a chocolate milkshake and cake before it was time for us to board our plane. There had been some big fires in and around Perth in
Bens gappy teeth
Just the right size for a straw!the last couple of days and the sky was pretty smokey, we couldn't see much of the city within a short time of us taking off. The flight was ok, a little bit rough but the food was quite good. It was the first time that Stephanie had enjoyed a hot airplane meal since we left home!
Melbourne
We were met at the other end by Douglas and Marion, friend's of Stephanie's family, who we would be staying with while in the area. They live out in the Yarra Valley, about 30km from the city. On the way home we headed up Mount Dandenong to take in the view back to the city before heading for some food in a local pub. We spent the rest of the evening showing some of our photos and chatting with our new hosts in their lovely house.
The next morning we headed out to meet some of Douglas and Marion's friends (Joe and Brenda) for lunch since they had both recently had birthdays. We went to another lovely restaurant at Pattinson Lakes with views overlooking the marina. The food was great and having finished we drove up to
Hillary's
Ben and Aaron up the lighthouse Arthur's seat where we had some spectacular views over Port Phillip Bay. We stayed there for a while before heading to Brenda and Joe's house for coffee and cake and then carried on back to the Yarra valley with pizza for dinner. It had been alot of travelling in the car for the day so we were both pretty tired by the end of it!
On monday Douglas dropped us off at the train station on his way to work and we headed in to explore the city. The first port of call was at tourist information where we picked up some leaflets on what we might like to do while we were here. We headed to "the lanes" and a small coffee shop for brunch while we read through them and decided what our plans were. We caught the free tourist bus around the botanical gardens and hopped off outside the National Gallery of Victoria and the Arts centre. The gallery was good and had a nice sculpture garden and wall of water. We then caught the free tram around the city through the docklands and got off to see the Koorie cultural centre. This had aboriginal art
Stephanie taking a leap
The dress acted as a parachute to allow her to gracefully drop into the water! and information on display and we spent some time reading through it but they were installing new galleries so some of it wasn't on display. We then walked back to the docklands where Stephanie needed a rest in the shade due to the heat and as she sat there she bumped into a friend from Glasgow. We continued to waterfront city where we had some choclate from a little cafe and looked at the Southern Star (the equivalent of the London Eye) before heading back across a fake grassed area where they were showing tennis on the big screen and walked abit more around the docklands. We caught the tram back into the centre and headed to see whether the schedule of play was up for Tuesday's Australian Open in our attempt to see Andy Murray. The list was out but the ticket office in town was closed so we headed ou tto the arena only to be told that they had fully sold out! 😞
Slightly disappointed we caught the train back home and were kindly picked up from the station and had a barbeque for dinner. I checked online just incase there had been a cancellation but still
Ben
Who knew that he could walk on water?? no tickets so I went back to watch top gear with everyone and almost conceeded that we'd just have to make do with ground passes and not see him on the main court. I decided to give it one last try, refreshed the internet page and was offered a choice of sun or shade! Since it gave a day of 37degrees we opted for shaded seats and it processed. We had the tickets!! :D
The Australian Open 2009
Tuesday morning, bright and early we got up and showered before catching the train into the city again. We got some breakfast at the same cafe as before, in the lanes, and then headed out to Melbourne Park for some tennis action. After picking up the paper tickets and having our bags searched we were in! Stephanie queued up for some face painting before we headed for the Rod Laver arena and our shaded seats. Considering they were very last minute the view was great, diagonally out over the court in row N. There were alot of British (mainly Scottish) people in the crowd, some in kilts or with big Scotland flags and he came out to a
Aaron twisting
A full 180 into the sea! large applause (i felt a little bit sorry for his opponent, not many Romanians had shown up!). The match was good, Murray seemed to take a few games to find his rhythm in the immense heat, it reaches over 60 degrees celsius on centre court, but won the first set before his opponent retired with a back injury. It was a shame that he wasn't on longer but at least he was through to the next round. The second match was Serena Williams vs. Yuan Meng (China). Serena managed to win pretty quickly and it was then time for the biggest match of the day (according to the locals) Fernando Gonzalez of Chile against Lleyton Hewitt. the crowd got very noisy at this point but it was a good atmosphere with alot of younger faces in the crowd cheering Hewitt on at every opportunity. There was a fairly large Chilean contingent too, with some just behind where we sat chanting away in reply and waving their flags! The match took over three hours but was very entertaining. We had a wander around the rest of the grounds and saw Elana Baltacha win her match as well to put another Brit
Us on the Giant's chair
At the top of Mount Dandenong there is a chair owned by "Igor the Giant" into the next round. It was then back to the train station feeling exhausted and caught the train back to Lilydale for the evening. I went for a quick dip in the pool to try and wake up a bit (it worked) and then we all sat around chatting for what was a very pleasant evening.
We decided that we had been pretty hectic for the last couple of days and that we would have a quieter day in the house today (wednesday). The day has so far consisted of having a lie in, watching some TV, playing on guitar hero and wii fit, having a game of pool and having a swim in the pool, oh and writing this blog!
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