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Published: August 15th 2007
Look - we
Outside Harold & Madge's houseSo with heavy hearts we left New Zealand to fly to Australia. We'd pre-booked a hostel in the centre of Melbourne - called Nomad's Industry. It's ultra-modern and ideal for the 20-something backpacker, but we thought we'd stay there anyway! We arrived, had a few welcome drinks and got our heads down for the night.
We woke up to find it was much warmer than the South Island and Imogen was spotted later in the day without a coat on!! But the sightseeing had to be put on hold while we found the Indian embassy to sort out our visas for the India-leg of our trip in October. Unfortunately the Great British tradition of bureaucratic red-tape seems to have been passed on through the old Empire and we were told this was going to take 5-10 days to process and we had to surrender our passports. So we were stuck in Melbourne! Fortunately we had already booked tickets to see the Kaiser Chiefs that evening at the Festival Hall about 10 mins walk away. The sell-out gig was fantastic and they really got the crowd going - it was particularly appropriate that they finished singing the chorus,
Oh my God I can't believe it, I've never been this far away from home...
Our Lonely
Kaiser Chiefs tickets
We couldn't photograph them, but we were there!! Planet guide recommended a walking tour, which we started the following day. In the afternoon we'd walked as far as Melbourne Gaol (that's a prison in foreign you know) which is now a museum. Its most famous prisoner was a chap called Ned Kelly, a bit of a loveable rogue Robin Hood character in Australia. Except that rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, he held up banks and shot policemen. So they hung him at Melbourne gaol. Opposite the gaol was the allegedly famous Dracula's theatre/restaurant. We'd heard a lot about it so we popped in to book a table for the following night. Back at the hostel it was 'Trivia Night' which was a thinly veiled excuse for getting people to down shots and eat pizza with chilli sauce on for points. We didn't win but in the process made lots of new friends and, thanks to the 2-for-1 drinks deal, drank large amounts of booze. Most of our new friends worked at the hostel and knew a place down the road called the Workshop, which was open until 2am. And then another place called Cookie, which was open even later. Oh dear.
Next day started very slowly but we dragged ourselves round the rest of the city to the end of the walking tour. On the way we stopped at the Sofitel hotel and took the lift to the 35th floor to use the toilets. Why? See the photo for the view! Then it was time to return to base and get ready for Dracula. Sadly cameras were not allowed so we couldn't take any pictures. Ever been to a restaurant and been greeted at the door by a blood dripping Frankenstein lookalike snarling,
Good evening maggots
? You get a drink (we had a cocktail called a 'Labotomy') and then travel on a genuine ghost-train to the table. During the meal there is a cabaret/stand up comedy night called 'Vampirates'. It's all very tongue-in-cheek, a bit Rocky Horror Show and very camp. We don't want to say too much in case you get to see it, but whilst we weren't 100%!s(MISSING)ure for the first 15 mins, by the end we were really into it.
Fortunately we acted like grown-ups for once and got a reasonably early and sober night ready for an early start in the morning. This was because we had to
be up at 8:20am for the jewel in Melbourne's tourism crown. The thing that puts Melbourne on the map. The reason for our visit. Mecca. Call it what you will, but the Aussie's call it 'The Neighbours tour'.
This took in hallowed places such as Errinsborough High and Ramsay Street. It didn't seem to matter that neither of us had watched the show for 10 years. We even bumped into Libby. Paul said to her,
I remember when you were this high
, holding up his hand to his chest. She replied,
But I still am that high?!
And we got a mong shot with her...
Sadly neither Bouncer or Mrs Mangle were available.
Back in the real world it was Jagermeister Bomb night at the hostel. This is a shot of Jagermeister dropped into a glass of Red Bull. You know you're going to try it. If you bought 4 (total cost $20), you got a T-shirt
FOR FREE!! Needless to say we woke up the next day with several T-shirts.
As a result of all the above, Friday's daytime sightseeing plans went out of the window. We nursed ourselves through to the evening when we payed a visit to Melbourne Cricket Ground (AKA the MCG) to watch Collingwood
Libby from Neighbours
Ain't she a beaut?! And Libby's not bad either... vs Richmond play Aussie Rules Football. The MCG is the absolute Mecca for AFL and would be a bit like seeing Man Utd vs Chelsea at The Oval. Conveniently both games are played on an oval pitch.
We figured out enough to get the general idea of what was going on - e.g. how points were scored, marks made etc. It really is a fabulous spectator sport as it is so fast-paced. But it also has some hilarious aspects which we couldn't quite figure out. Firstly there are 5 referrees who seem to take it in turns when they can be bothered. Then there are the men in luminous jackets who just run on and off the pitch, in and amongst the players in a seemingly random fashion, but take no actual part in the game. It's almost like they want to play but aren't allowed. We think they might be passing messages from the bench to the players but we never really worked it out. The game is split into 4 quarters, each one supposedly lasting 25 mins. But there seems to be an average of 8 mins stoppage time per quarter so we must have watched nearly 140
AFL at the MCG
That's Aussie Rules at Melbourne Cricket Ground... mins of play! But the best bit of all was during the break between each quarter. A little golf-car comes out onto the pitch and performs a complete lap of the pitch. It never stops and seemingly serves no purpose. Just as it gets to the end the hooter sounds for the next quarter to start. It was brilliant! We had promised an Aussie chap we met in Queenstown that we would cheer on Collingwood. Their strip looked like the packaging on Tesco Value products, so we confused all the nearby spectators by cheering on the Tesco Team. Of course we had a token beer and pie to really get into the spirit of things.
Click here to view 'The Car' in action... Having wasted most of Friday, we decided to set ourselves an aggressive sightseeing schedule on Saturday. We explored the very modern Melbourne Central Museum in the morning, rode on the Big Wheel in Melbourne Park in the afternoon, then caught a train to Spotswood in the suburbs to visit the 'Science Alive' museum. This was really meant for kids which meant we had a great time! Our shoulder muscles reminded us that we'd had a virtual wheelchair race the following day, we fired
rockets and created vortices and vibrations.
In the evening we thought we'd check out more of Melbourne's nightclub scene by rustling up a gang to go to 'The Croft Institute'. It seems a rule in Melbourne that the more alleyways you need to go down to get to a club, the cooler it is. This was down an alley off an alley in an alley. It was supposed to be themed as a hospital, but apart from a hospital bed in the ladies toilets and a few syringes and test-tubes knocking about, it was not as 'hospitally' as we were expecting.
On Sunday we headed to bohemian St Kilda. First stop was a ride on a rollercoaster at Luna Park. We had a snag (sausage) and onions in bread, walked along the Esplanade and down the pier. As St Kilda's cake shops are a thing of legends, we stuffed our faces with massive cakes until we felt sick and walked them off before getting the tram home. In the evening we walked down to the South Bank area where there is the Eureka Tower. You can get the lift to the 88th floor (it takes 40secs from the ground!)
Imogen with Dr Karl
Ladies, you know you're jealous! which is about 300m up. There is an observation area and the city looked amazing at night.
Next morning, we called the Indian embassy to find our visas were ready for collection. Hurrah! We also arranged our Greyhound bus ticket for the following night - an 11 hour overnight bus journey to Canberra. To finish Melbourne in an appropriate fashion, we headed back to St Kilda where an English pub called the Elephant & Wheelbarrow were hosting a very special gig. Dr Karl Kennedy (of Neighbours fame) and his band The Waiting Room were on stage covering classics by Oasis, Blur, U2 and the Proclaimers. They really were good and we managed to grab a very rare photo of Imogen and Dr Karl. She's still smiling 2 days on!
So we move on to Canberra next as we sadly say goodbye to our many new friends in The Nomad's backpackers. Don't miss fantastic Melbourne off your itinery if you're ever in Oz...
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Michelle
non-member comment
Mate!
Hiya, enjoyed reading your blog on Melbourne this morning, glad to hear you were supporting Collingwood, thats who my Dad supports (he is an Aussie orginally from Melbourne, most of my cousins live there!). Enjoy your trip, how long are you planning on staying in Canberra?? I hear its a bit shite. It's raining again, what more is there to say. Have fun. Chelle :-)