The long route back to London continued as I landed in Melbourne at 1am. The plan had been to spend a couple of days here before moving on to Canberra. Of course, that plan didn’t take in to account that I would be spending the first morning in the city in the Emergency wing of St Vincent’s Hospital, conveniently located across the road from my hostel. Cue a rapid change of plans and my staying in Melbourne until Friday. For those who are interested; I ended up being diagnosed with a severe Strep infection and a moderate Staph infection along with a couple of other nasty critters. As you can also tell by the fact I’m writing this blog; I’m on the mend.
Luckily Melbourne is a vibrant city with more than enough to do to keep me entertained for a week. I spent most of Monday and Tuesday am wandering around exploring the city and looking for a book shop (Melbourne, it seems, has a scarcity of them). I also had the chance to find a couple of cool little eateries and Max Brynner's Chocolate Shop; maker of the most chocolatey Mocca I've ever had.
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| The very top step of the MCG...it's high |
Then I turned my attention to some of the more traditional tourist activities, starting with a trip to the Melbourne Cricket Ground and National Sport Museum. I’m by no means a cricket fan, a fact which seemed to confuse my tour guide, a nice bloke by the name of Peter, but you can’t come to Melbourne as a sports fan and not go and look around this Mecca of sports. It’s a vastly impressive ground, seating 90,000 and the tour was incredibly informative, aided by the fact it was one-on-one. Plus I got to sit in the MCG Members Chairs whilst wearing an England Rugby shirt. That shouldn’t have amused me like it did.
Also worth a look (again as a sports fan) was the National Sports Museum, at the same location if for no other reason than it provides an excellent look into how the always confusing, occasionally entertaining and often violent sport of Aussie Rules football came in to being. I just wish I’d left longer than an hour to look around it.
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| Great Ocean Road |
Wednesday was entirely occupied by a day trip to The Great Ocean Road, operated by Wildlife Tours and involving a 7am pick up and a near 10pm return. Even with the long day it’s a spectacular drive, along a 300km stretch of some of Australia’s most stunning coastline, peppered with sandy beaches and huge rock formations jutting out of the sea. It offered me my first view of a Koala (no kangaroos yet though). There was even a rainforest on the route.
In an effort to save money I spent Thursday wandering around Queen Victoria market, where I was able to pick up a kangaroo fillet for dinner (tasting report = bloody delicious. Gamey and tender) and a trip to ACMI, the Australian Centre for Moving Image, a free and interactive museum focussing on the rise of Film/TV/Digital Entertainment in Australia. It was actually a lot of fun, incorporating classic movie clips, interactive games and the ability to record yourself in Bullet-Time (remembering that The Matrix was filmed in Australia).
Tomorrow I finally leave on the overnight bus to Sydney. Hopefully my time there will go slightly smoother than the start of my time in Melbourne.
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