Melbourne, Australia
After long day of travel, finally arrived in the land down under. Checked in at YHA Metro in Melbourne. Tired…
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We landed in Melbourne at the start of their “cold” season, to get away from the heat and monsoons of the tropics. We really hadn’t prepared ourselves for the psychological effect of going from the peak of spring one day, to the peak of fall the next. One day, cherry blossoms are blooming on the trees. The next day, maple leaves are falling from the trees. One day, the sun is setting around 8:00 pm, the next day it’s setting around 4:30 pm. Suddenly, the direction finding tool known as the sun is in the North, and it really feels like the planet has just been turned upside down!
Despite the shorter days (and sudden need to sleep longer), we are loving Melbourne! The people are incredibly friendly. Complete strangers (albeit a little intoxicated) come up to us to chat, and are eager to tell us about their city (and why it’s better than the other Australian cities) when they learn that we’re not from around here. The service personel are a little less cheery than we’re used to, but I guess that’s what happens when they don’t receive tips.
The wines are delicious (Especially the Shiraz, of course). We have even enjoyed a few Reislings, which are made very dry here.
We spent about 5 days in Melbourne. For the first few nights, we camped out at our first ever youth hostel. It was more pricy that we’d expect for a hostel, but we did get a private room, and a beautiful rooftop lounge and patio with barbeque. After touring the massive Queen Victoria market, we returned to our patio and grilled up some fresh Kangaroo meat. It was very tasty (albeit dry and overkooked). At the market, we also experienced the shock of trying to purchase a bundle of bananas, forgetting the discussion we’d had earlier on our China tour about “the price of bananas in Australia”, following the Cyclone that tore through Queensland last month. A bunch of 5 bananas: $15!!! We spent one day at the Melbourne zoo, which has some of the most impressive enclosures we’ve seen in any zoo. The locals probably got a laugh out of us, as we even gauked over the pretty birds wandering the grounds, which are probably the equivalent to our pigeons or seaguls. Australian Rules football is something that we just had to experience while here in the heart of AFL country. So we had our friend Beau (whom we met on our China tour) escort us to a game and explain the rules to us. It’s crazy! At first glance, it looks like Rugbey (with an oval ball), but apparently the rules are more like Gailic football, with a little basketball and soccer thrown in, and they play on Cricket fields. It’s more non-stop action than Rugbey! It’s hard to believe that this game has been around for over 100 years, and we’ve hardly ever heard of it in America. To round off the AFL experience, we also went on a tour of the oldest criecket stadium in town, called the MCG, which is ~150 years old! After the game, Beau gave us a nice tour of the doclands and riverside too. One evening (sorry, loosing track of specific days), we went to the top of the Rialto tour, and caught a glimpse of the sheer size of this city. The city seemed quite small from our experiences downtown, but apparently >3 million people live here!
Comments
Time for a rest!
From Sandra Shiels, on May 26, 2006 at 02:05PM
You are both going to wear out soon. Joanne, I know that you don’t know what ‘rest’ means, but try. Thank you for helping me be an armchair traveller.Hosteling
Checked out your ‘digs’at:www.yha.com.au/hostels/details.cfm?hostelid=98
Reviewd all the 360 degree views and still photos but didn’t see either of you any where . . . daaa.
Looks pretty comfy to me … as compared to some of the Hostels in Europe in the 60’s ……
(Who is this old geezer who has taken over my body?)
From Carl Shiels, on May 28, 2006 at 02:50PMRe: Hosteling
From Joanne, Grant Olecko, on May 29, 2006 at 10:34AM
The Melbourne Metro YHA is definately a nice, clean, and quiet hostel (I loved the sun room and deck up top), but it was pricy. We got stuck paying ~$90AUD/night, because the only room they had available was a big one (big enough to sleep 4 adults). So last night we moved into a more affordable hotel, which happens to have a lot more character. It’s called the Stork Hotel (http://www.storkhotel.com), and is the 2nd oldest hotel in Melbourne. We’ll be checking out tomorrow, to catch a flight to Tasmania. Not sure yet where we’ll be staying in Tasmania but the YHA’s in Hobart will be a good place to start looking if you really need to find us 🙂
