Melbourne Moomba, MCG and Ramsay Street...
Trip Start
Jan 17, 2007
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26
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Trip End
Jul 20, 2007
Melbourne, Australia
Friday, March 16, 2007
We arrived in Melbourne from the Great Ocean Road ready for some action, and instantly took to the city, which is actually more like a large town. The centre is really easy to get around, and the suburbs are easy to get to with fast highways seemingly going everywhere. It's much slower paced and friendlier (especially to tourists) than Sydney and is much nicer to walk around. Melbourne-ites are obviously proud of their city, it's very clean and public transport and conveniences are excellent.
Our campsite is down the road from where Kylie Minogue comes from and isn't far from where Neighbours is filmed. It's been lovely to be so close to the city but surrrounded by countryside and also to be in the same place for a week. We feel like we know the area and the city quite well!
After having a day to look around the city we went to the Mooba Carnival. It's an annual event over the Labour Day weekend which is really popular and has loads of free events like the Stunt water-skiing shows, childrens fancy dress, live bands and even Australia Birdman competition! The whole thing culminates in a big 'Carnival' Fair with rides and a big fireworks display on the Yarra river. We had a brilliant time, the atmosphere was fantastic and the fireworks were amazing. They're not too concerned about "health and safety" over here - we were only about 5 metres from the lauch platforms! It was great to see them light up the river and the city skyline.
Unfortunately as it is the end of the cricket season there are no games at the MCG whilst we are here - so we decided to go on a tour of the ground instead. It's the biggest cricket ground in the world, with a capactiy of about 100,000 people - more than the new Wembley stadium and the entire population of the Isle of Man! Their biggest ever crowd though, was 160,000 for guess who... Yep, Billy Graham! It was really good to be there and imagine what it would be like to see the ground completely full for the Boxing Day Test Match with England and Australia. The tour guide was really good, and probably old enough to have seen it when it was originally built in the early 1900's! He took us round the whole stadium, explained how they remove the cricket pitch at the end of the season (that's what's happening on the picture) for the Aussie Rules Football which is also played here, we went round the dressing rooms, in the members areas and listened to his many stories of England and Aussie rivalry through the years.
After stopping at the now legendary "Lord of the Fries" chippy - officially the best chips in the world according to Jilly - we made our way to the Neighbours Centre for our tour. Funnily enough, two of the other people (out of 20) on the tour were from the Isle of Man, they get everywhere! It was a hilarious afternoon, the tour guide was really funny and knew everything there is to know about Neighbours and its' history despite being too young to have seen the first few years!
We went to Erinsborough High before going to the studios where Karl and Susan were waiting for us at the bus stop. They are incredibly nice people, really easy to talk to and genuinely love meeting Neighbours fans! (Nearly all of whom are British students!) It's good to know that they're really normal, friendly people who live round the corner and popped round to meet us. They explained some filming tricks because although filmed in Melbourne, it's set in somewhere hotter and warmer, like Brisbane. Because Melbourne's often cold and grey they use special camera filters and despite being freezing they have to 'act warm'! We were shown around a couple of sets before going onto Ramsay Street which is about 10 minutes away from the studio. Ramsay street is a normal residential street called Pin Oak Court, the owners have to request permission before altering any part of their houses. We got there on a filming day so weren't allowed right down to the houses, but it was good to see some filming action and how small the street actually is.
Our third Hard Rock Cafe of the trip was another great treat. Good food, good music and good atmosphere.
A brilliant start to our time in Melbourne.
Lots of love
Jilly and Laurie xx
