Melbourne - Our newest favourite city!

Sorry we haven't written for a few days, we had gotten a little behind with the blog and so bringing it up-to-date along with exploring a fantastic new city has been a job!

We arrived in Melbourne on Saturday night, checking in to the hostel at around 8pm. Almost immediately, we knew the hostel would be perfect for us as it looked clean, modern, big and friendly with lots to see and do.

After a quick explore of the building, including the rooftop terrace and sun room which offer 360 degree panoramic views of the city, we returned to the room which has great views of the skyscrapers in the city.

As we have mentioned in previous blogs, the medication Rach had been given for her foot infection had caused an allergic reaction, bringing her our in a painful looking rash all-over her body. When we had settled in the hostel on the Saturday, we thought it best to go to the nearby hospital to have it checked out as it had begun to look a bit scary!

The hostel reception gave us directions to the hospital which was just a five minute walk, while another British traveller at the reception desk told us we would get the treatment for free there so long as we had our passport with us. Result!

So off we popped to hospital. It was a good job the walk was short as the wind and rain wasn't the best when you're in shorts and t-shirt having left a sunny Perth earlier in the day.

Check-in to the hospital was quick, so much better than a Saturday night trip to Arrowe Park would be! The receptionist you see is actually the triage nurse who will take a brief look at you and take things such as your pulse before admitting you. After that, it was time to take a seat and wait...and watch some of the "unique" characters that the Melbourne night was about to introduce us too. It was Halloween afterall...

First up, a chap who checked himself in before trying to take a seat in the waiting area. He had real trouble keeping himself upright, or even on the seat, and curled up in some pretty bizarre positions. Not that it helped his waiting time though, as he was there as long as we were, and then some.

The next slide of the automatic doors presented the staff with their next "serious" injury of the evening. A party of four teenagers, who were somewhat worse for wear and dressed for a day at the races, came in. One of the girls was complaining of having falling down six storeys of a building, although she wasn't sure if it was in fact six storeys or six stairs.

She was jumping up and down, twisting and turning, bending and stretching, and laughing, so either her tipple had been extremely strong or falling down six storeys of a building is quite painless.

She was accompanied by her friend and each of their boyfriends, who weren't finding the experience as fun as the girls. The "injured" girl's boyfriend soon spiced things up by swearing at staff, kicking off on another patient in the waiting room and then when the next patient was called stating loudly "here comes the next one with the runny nose".

After being ushered out by security, he soon returned in a slightly more calm manner, but would later return to his swearing ways before doing the manly thing and........crying on his mates shoulder.

Back to Rach, and as the strange choice of film, Ghost, came to an end on TV, she was called in to see the doctor, leaving Rich to enjoy a similarly well chosen film The Hills Have Eyes (a horror flick in which people are eaten!).

Rach's treatment was excellent and the friendly doctor soon started to ask about her problems! She was presented with a hospital gown before emptying her bag of medication - which equaled that of a small pharmacy - out on to the bed.

After an examination by two different doctors and a set of blood samples being taken, the course of action advised was to stop taking all medications as the foot was nearly healed. Rach's room rivalled that of Foxy with all the buttons and machines. While Rich wanted to press all the different buttons and take a seat in a wheelchair, he opted for the more sensible option of grabbing a chair and just wondering what all the buttons actually did. After waiting for the all-clear on the blood tests, she was given a letter for her doctor (which we opened to read ourselves!) and told to enjoy the rest of her trip and see how things go.

Just to jump the gun slightly, we are pleased to report four days on that Rach is now 80% better and her rash isn't causing her nearly as much discomfort.

After leaving hospital to walk back to the hostel, the lure of a 7-eleven was too great to grab a bit of cheap supper and a drink - who said American's are good for nothing?!

Having got to bed somewhere around 3am, we were up understandably late the next day. We decided to explore the local market which was winding down for the day, but we did see some great Australian art that could be bought really cheap, as well as the usual market-type stuff. After picking up a few things we headed back to the hostel for tea.

The hostel has a licensed cafe as well as a huge kitchen you can use yourself, so we had a very reasonably priced Lasagne for dinner. Once again, we were really surprised to see the wide range of ages staying here, both elderly couples and single people enjoying the hostel and its facilities.

One old man we became quite fond of. He came over to our table with a look of amazement on his face and a bottle of Coke in his hand. He went on to tell us that he had been overwhelmed at how smart and clever the vending machine was and how it was the first time he had ever used one. In his words, he felt being at the hostel was; "helping him catch up with the world".

After dinner, we headed up to the room to decide on what trips we would be doing in the week to follow and trying to come up with a plan of action for each day.

Monday

We were up nice and early on Monday to grab some breakfast in the hostel before walking down in to the city of Melbourne, a short 5 minute walk. We both fell in love with the place very quickly, even though it couldn't be much more different to Singapore.

Before we left the hostel, we asked one of the receptionists if we could book some trips with her. They are actually ran by an outside company, but the hostel help people to book them to get the best prices, etc.

We opted for full day trips to the Mornington Peninsula (Thursday) and Phillip Island (Friday), while also selecting a trip to the set of Neighbours on Saturday afternoon. The lady who was booking them for us had a real way with words and soon had the guy at the other end of the phone, Zed, wrapped around her little finger. By the end of the conversation, she had also blagged us a free attraction pass allowing us free admission to the Melbourne Aquarium, the Eureka SkyDeck and a one hour river cruise up the Yarra River which runs centrally through the city. More about these later.

We then headed out to the city, where we hopped on a free old-fashioned tram which runs a circular tourist route that you can hop-on and hop-off and provides a commentary as you go. The entire city of Melbourne seems to run on trams, mostly very modern ones, and the roads are pretty mad as a result.

We stayed on the tram until we reached Federation Square. Rather than try to describe it ourselves, here is how the website describes it:

"Locals have embraced Fed Square as a true reflection of their city, with rich cultural experiences, a diversity of places to eat and drink, unique shopping and a wealth of information to welcome visitors. Fed Square is where cultures meet, friends meet, minds meet and worlds meet. No wonder all of Melbourne is saying, 'Meet you at Fed Square!'"

One of the many cool things about the square is the free deck chairs that are placed around the square for locals and visitors to sit in and "enjoy their city". After a past experience in Kensington Gardens in London where sitting on a deckchair nearly cost us about five pound each, we were pleasantly surprised that you could just pull up a chair and sit there for as long as you like here, for free.

After having a breather, we were back on our feet and walking down Flinders Street to find the tourist shop to pick up our free attraction passes. We immediately decided to use one of them, visiting the city aquarium.

It was probably not somewhere we would have gone to without the passes, but we are really glad we did go. The first exhibit in the building was the Antarctic Penguin one. It was feeding time for the Penguins, and they were waddling, sliding and pecking their way to grab as many fish as they could. That was apart from some females who were sitting on nests of eggs and pecked and hissed at any Penguin that came near them.

There was a very sweet moment when one male Penguin was looking after his partner by hopping to another nest and taking pebbles back to his partner's nest before gently placing them down next to her. Romance is not dead! We got some great photos, and videos, of this (for Steph!!) that we will pop on here as soon as we can.

It took a good hour to go around the entire aquarium and as well as the usual marine fish and shark tunnel which we seem to take for granted at such attractions these days, there were also some amazing jellyfish, octopus, sea horses and the bizarre looking sea dragons. The most unusual fact to come out of the visit - you are more likely to be killed by a Bee than a Shark!

After leaving the aquarium, we headed to the river to see if we could find our free boat trip, but no such look. The ticket booth where it looked to leave from looked as though it hadn't been open in years. Luckily, the river sides were really nice, with art and sculptures, buskers and entertainers all over the place.

After a lengthy walk both sides of the river, we then headed back to Flinders Street and looked to see if we could find the famous laneways - small alleys that were meant merely to be service roads when the city was created that are now artistic hubs in themselves, the walls lined with street art (graffiti style) that has the blessing of the city council.

There are also many bars and restaurants up these, and in the first laneway we found was a small Italian street, said to be more Italian than Italy itself! Although the street is really narrow, a row of large umbrellas ran up the middle, each with patio heaters under to keep the guests toasty warm. The food here is so much cheaper than in Perth, and so we opted to have tea at one of the Italian's in the lane - and it was lovely!!

Curiously, while we were sitting here a couple arrived behind us dressed as bride and groom with a photographer and proceeded to have a range of photos taken in some unusual places around the lanes. Nobody else batted an eyelid, so at first we figured it may be a magazine shoot. Minutes later, another couple also dressed as bride and groom arrived, but they had family and friends with them, so we have no idea what was going on.

After dinner, we called it a day and headed back to the hostel having tired ourselves out with a long day. We love Melbourne though!

Tuesday

Tuesday 2nd November, and Melbourne Cup day. There had been a real buzz in the city since the day we arrived, in fact even when we were in Perth people were talking about the event. As the flags around town stated - it's the event that stops a nation.

After visiting Federation Square the previous day, we thought we would go and watch the race there with the locals on the giant TV screen that is permanently situated there. It was the perfect venue, although we experienced Melbourne's infamous 'four seasons in a day' and the heavy but short rain showers no doubt had an effect on the number of people who had decided to watch it in the square.

That said, and despite a heavy downpour minutes before the race started, hundreds of people did suddenly appear and make it an atmosphere to remember for the big race. An elderly lady in Perth had advised us to have a small bet on the race so we could feel even more a part of it, and as with the Grand National, it was a case of pick the one with the coolest name! We're pleased to announce, that Maluckyday (Rach's idea to pick!) ran a fantastic final few furlongs to come home second and bag us a massive win of $3.30. Result!

After the race finished, we had another quick look for the River Cruise that we have our free tickets for, but again everything by the river looked shut and there was no boats in sight! We presumed that as the Melbourne Cup is a public holiday in Australia, most places were closed. It's great to see how the whole country gets behind such a huge national event, and takes enormous pride in it. They even celebrate the Queen's Birthday with a public holiday!

Our other free ticket was for the Eureka SkyDeck, a huge new-ish skyscraper that looms high over the city. It is also the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere.

We decided to see if this was open, and it was, so we opted to take a trip to the top to see what it was like. Again, it may not have been something we would have done without our free ticket, but we are really glad we did.

A super-quick elevator zoomed us up to the 88th floor in an ear-popping 38 seconds! The windows of the top ten floors of this magnificent looking building are 24 carot gold plated glass!

Once you step out of the elevator, the view takes your breath away as you peer over to Port Phillip Bay and beyond to the Tasman Sea. You can walk right around the floor so can enjoy panoramic views of the city. Despite the ever-changing weather, the view was relatively clear, allowing you to see for miles. With it being Melbourne Cup Day, 3 or 4 helicopters were buzzing around the sky between the race course and a platoon on the Yarra River - no doubt for those VIP's who had paid staggering amounts of cash for the privilege.

The city looked fantastic, and some of the highlights included being able to see St Kilda beach, Albert Park and another F1 track(!!), the full path of the Yarra River, the incredible number of railway lines that snake out of Flinders Street Station and the many sports grounds, including the world famous MCG, the Etihad Stadium, AAMI Park, Flemington Racecourse (home of the Melbourne Cup) and the venue for the Australian Open Tennis competition and its many bright blue tennis courts. Video and pics from the top of the SkyDeck will be put up on our albums at some point over the next week.

After our trip in to the skies above Melbourne, it was back down to earth and back to the hostel as another exhausting day took its toll on us. We dread to think how many miles of walking we are doing over here!

The evening in the hostel was nice as we relaxed on sofas watching TV (Rach is already hooked on 'Packed to the Rafters', another Aussie soap!), enjoyed some dinner in the cafe and generally just chilled out.

Wednesday

Happy Birthday to Nana Peggy who is 85 today!

Today we had a plan to do some shopping, head to St Kilda to visit the pier and beach, take a walk around Albert Park and try to track down our elusive boat trip! We managed just one of our aims!

We made the now familiar walk down in to the city this morning and soon managed to complete our two shopping tasks of the day. For Rich to get a charger for his mobile phone and for Rach to have a look around some of the clothes shops (which she loves!) and to get some shoes for our trips over the coming days, although she managed to get some sock-things that do the job!

We then headed to the train station to see if we could find a train that would take us to St Kilda. We were told we needed to walk up the street to the large tram station and jump on tram 16, although the ticketing system for the public transport here is, for tourists at least, a little puzzling.

The locals have prepaid cards like Singapore and Perth which they top up and simple swipe when jumping on a train, bus or tram. They top them up online, at machines or in newsagents. Trams only take coin payment on board, and that is no easy task when we were told it was $3.70 each to get to St Kilda. Adding to the confusion was that there are time limits on your ticket, meaning for $3.70 each we would only have two hours to return to the tram and come back, either that or pay another $3 on top of that. It was all very confusing, and very expensive, so we decided to stay in the city.

Instead, we thought it was a good time to use the last of our free attraction tickets and have our one hour boat trip. We went to the berth on the dock where our tickets say to go, but again it was closed. However, over the otherside of the river, just through a bridge, we could see a river cruise boat docking. After looking at a map in the window of a ticket booth, we thought that may be ours afterall!

Quickly, we ran up the riverside, over a the bridge, down the steps the other side and through a bar, just in time to see the boat pull away with people leisurely supping their drinks on board! We were a little miffed, so decided we would just wait for the next one and have a drink in a bar next to the docking berth until the next boat arrived.

We found another ticket booth, hidden away behind some trees and the bar! Cutting a long story short, the boat that pulled off wasn't ours afterall and our tickets were for another company. Their office over this side of the river looked as though it had been used recently, but was locked up with no explanation for why. The plot thickens....we have no idea where we find our boat and we're not sure if we will get time before we leave now.

With an early start planned for our trip to the Mornington Peninsula tomorrow (Thursday), we decided to grab some food to take back to the hostel and try and get an early night. The bus is due to pick us up at 7am tomorrow!

We will get pics up as soon as we can, and let you know how our trips go (and if we ever find the boat!).

Until then, take care.

love Rich and Rach
xxxxx