Our Qantas flight from Sydney to Melbourne was great apart from the delay. They loved giving us food and drink. As we flew over Sydney we could see the Royal National Park coastline. The park is so big that we only ever managed to see part of it by foot.
On Saturday Melbourne was filled with mental Irish people dressed up like ejits. It took us a while to realise that Ireland were playing Australia in the rugby. Theoretically we could've gone to the game. There were tickets about on Saturday afternoon but we settled for the warmth of the pub as we were knackered and had no warm gear to sit on the terraces for two hours.
We have done a good few things since we got here. We visited Christine's Uncle Francie and Elaine in Garfield and had a barbeque, had a few drinks with our friend Edel that we met in Sydney and had coffee with Doireann at Southgate. We also went to the Austrian Centre for Moving Images and saw the Game On Exhibition where we played away on old video games from Pong, Space Invaders, Packman, King of Fighters (where Chris beat Dave's ass!, Lemmings, and Nintendo Wii. How cool is the Nintendo Wii by the way!!!! We want one!
On Tuesday we went on a tour of the Great Ocean Road. The weather held out and we managed to see some beautiful sights. Our tour guide was a complete mentalist which added to the craic. His name was Bernie and he looked like a crazed Santa on holiday. He was a typical Ozzie - big, brash and politically incorrect. He slagged everyone from the French, Belgian, Pommes, Canadian, Japanese, Dutch and American. He just called us the the Paddy's but we didn't get as much stick as everyone else which was surprising. He was impressed when we told him where we lived in Sydney as he said all the 'Paddy's' usually live in County Bondi. The two Belgian people got it the worst. He kept calling them Frenchies and Froggies and picked up snails and asked did they want a bite. Aww and the 'Ducthie' got it pretty bad too. Apparently everyone in Holland is big headed!
We stayed with Uncle Francie on Wednesday night. They took us to Phillip Island where they have a Summer house. We went to the zoo and saw The Nobbies. We also had another big barbecue but this time it was a proper barbecue with a fire. We weren't able to stay for the penguin parade but maybe another time. We took a walk on the beach and saw the sunset where Auntie May used to sit when she visited. It was beautiful.
Here are some photos
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/dougalbaa
4 comments:
Hi David/Christine, Glad you are both enjoying Melbourne. Playing Pacman. Wonder if you are as good as me. My favourite game. Love your He Man Masters of the UNIVERSE TEE-shirt so He man still lives. Love Mum
Doubt we have a patch on you at Pac Man mum. The feedback with the He Man t-shirt has been overwhelmingly positive and now I have the approval of my Mum too. Perfect!
I spotted Batman Avenue on the Melbourne map in the Fitzroy Night Out photos. These Superheroes are becoming a bit of a theme.
Melbourne looks very Old World. Really sorry you didn't make it to the rugby. Ireland ran them close and a couple of extra supporters could have made all the difference. I take it that it was a lot cooler there than when you left Sydney for Viet Nam.
Melbourne was bloody cold. We would have benefited from having decent coats but we got through it by doubling up on t-shirts (Chris had about 10 on actually)
If we'd known about the rugby we definitely would have gotten tickets. There was a decent atmosphere in the pub though.
Melbourne has a nice feel to it. The wide streets in a grid layout are quite a contrast to Sydney which was just thrown together like most places back home. The trams were cool too. Apparently the locals don't like them though. I think it's just that everyone complains about public transport. The trains and ferries were never out of the news in Sydney.
I think I could quite comfortably live in Melbourne though that's unlikely to happen now that we've used our working holiday visas.
Maybe we should have done agricultural jobs to get the visa extension or at least bribed a farmer to fill out the papers for us.
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