Melbourne
Trip Start
Oct 20, 2008
1
42
69
Trip End
Jun 11, 2009
Where I stayed
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I should also say at this point that it was on the journey down to Canberra that I spotted our first kangaroos. Two of them just chilling out beside some sheep in a field. Strange just to see them standing there, you don't really believe you could see them anywhere other than the zoo. We saw five more the following morning while waiting for the train. All just hanging out in the morning sun. We're disappointed to have seen none since, apart from the dead ones, so gald to have seen some live ones before the roadkill. The only thing we've seen since to cause such excitement was the cockroaches in our room....delightful!
Melbourne is a fabulous city. It has a real European feel to it, but then thats not surprising with the huge amount of European immigration into the city. We spent a couple of evenings at St Kilda, a lovely beach-side suburb with a real atmosphere around. Acland street is the place to go for some devine cakes and traybakes-good enough even to rival Larne! We went to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow in St Kilda last night which is supposed to be the place to go......and had a glimpse of Dr.Karl Kennedy! The "Neighbours" night was in full swing and instead of paying the $100 entrance fee, we lurked in the front part of the bar and within minutes of buying our first pint we had sighted the hunk from Ramsey Street! Very exciting, although Dec definitely beat me on the celabrity stakes by taking a pee alongside Karl and seeing more of him than I can even imagine! Connor the token norn Irish Neighbours star was also there....all in all, a very funny night!
While here we also met with a friend of Decs sis and her parents who welcomed us into their home and made us a lovely dinner. Thanks to the Gracey family!
In the city, we visited the Melbourne gaol where they have the death masks (they cut the heads off the bodies after they hung them and took a mould of their heads!) of all those who were hung in the prison, including Ned Kelly, who despite being a theif and murderer seems to have the reputation of a legend here. Very interesting to hear about the petty (and not so petty) crimes that people were incarcerated for, especially the women. Those were tough times and it often didn't take much for someone to be thrown in and locked away. The immigration museum in the city was also very interesting, hearing personal stories of how and why people have settled in this country. It wasn't an easy thing to do as well whenever you were given a dictation test where you were tested in a range of languages, including sometimes Irish! On Sunday we got tickets to see "Wicked" the musical. Good show, very cleverly done. Today we hired some bikes and took a cycle around the Yarra river and finished off our visit tonight with a Vietnamese meal at one of the many Vietnamese restaurants in the Richmond area of the city...yum.
Tomorrow we have a 13 hour bus journey back to Sydney where hopefully we will pick up our Indian and Vietnamese visas without issues and then be on our way to the East coast.
