Getting here from Sydney was not fun, first our reserved
seats had gone, no request for assistance on file, we were sent to Oversized
Baggage, which apparently serves as passenger assistance as well. After much to
do we got similar seats to our old ones and were taken through security to be
parked and told that someone with a buggy would take us to the gate. After about
45 minutes we heard the boarding call and I hailed a buggy going past, he took
us, but he said he hadn’t been given the job.
In Melbourne it got worse, over a ½ hour wait to get off the
plane, 6 of us waiting, then 2 of us plus wives put on a buggy and told driver
on the way; about another ½ hour a small buggy passed is and parked up some way
away, it’s driver walked past us and I hailed him, he checked in and was asked
if he could take us, what a shambles. In baggage reclaim our’s were the only 2
bags on a stationery carousel, we passed out into the arrivals hall, to find no
pick up. Telephone call to the transfer company and found that our flight had
been cancelled and driver not sent, however another driver had recently arrived
and took us to our hotel. Our flight had been combined with one earlier, Gwen
had spotted the cancellation on the departure boards in Sydney, but since
people were being checked in we assumed it was an error, yet another shambles,
QANTAS is fast becoming our least favourite airline.
Hotel very nice, Quay West again, but the view doesn’t get
close to Sydney, we can see the central business district and the Yarra river.
Next day we picked up our car and drove out for a half day
trip to the Dandenong Ranges and the tourist Puffing Billy Railway, we had a
lovely trip on the 8 ½ mile line from Belgrave to Emerald Lake, passing the
earlier train returning at Menzies Creek which had a Dining Car. There is a
tradition of sitting with your legs hanging out of the carriage, Health and
Safety would not like that in the UK.
The Railway has some very nice American design locos as well
as a lovely example of a Beyer Garrat built in Manchester they also have
several more modern diesel locos used when there is a risk of fires.
We got back to our car and found that our Sat Nav had
failed, and the roadside assistance refused to come out to us, even though for
foreigners the Sat Nav not working is exactly the same as a broken down car.
We had a Melbourne area map with Belgrave, shown and a
Melbourne city map, we were given a verbal run down of the route and set off ¾
hour later. We left going north instead of south and wasted another ½ hour. We
arrived in the city, found the correct road into the centre, and then spent
another ½ hour trying to get to our hotel which was never more than ½ mile
away, very frustrating indeed.
We had planned to start out early the next day but had to go
the Car Hire company, to sort out the car, by a miracle we got there first time
using a set of directions from Google Maps. The problem was a blown fuse in the
car which meant the Sat Nav was not charging, they changed the car because they
didn’t have a spare fuse.
We set out for Philip Island about 80 miles away, here they
have a Koala Conservation Centre, a Penguin Parade and a Heritage Farm. We
stopped in the main town Cowes for lunch, visited Rhyl and then on to the Koala
centre where Gwen saw 3 of these lovely creatures all showing her their bums,
there were a lot of Kookaburra birds however. The Penguin Parade happens at
dusk (9pm here) so that was out and the Heritage Farm closed early; we enjoyed
the towns and the lunch.
The last day with the car it was obvious that trying to
travel even half of The Great Ocean Road was too far, so we set off to see
Geelong, Torquay and Anglesea and then if we had time, go to Ballarat.
Geelong is the 2nd largest city in Victoria with
a large shopping area, our Sat Nav continually kept trying to send us down no
turn streets; so we went down to the harbour, which was huge with some lovely
views.
Torquay was a sleepy little town, a combination of holiday
and retirement accommodation with plenty of development taking place.
Anglesea was much smaller but a charming place with nice
beaches and a police roadblock where I was breathalysed; Aussie and NZ police
both have the right to stop anybody anywhere, perhaps we should in the UK.
We had spotted a Scout Camp on the way in, so visited it on
the way back. Camp Eumerella was a medium sized camp but the location was
superb, set inside the Otway National Forest on a headland above the beach.
Ballarat was a major centre in the Australian Gold Rush in
the 1860’s with some wonderful buildings.
We would have liked to go to Sovereign Hill which is a
rebuild of aspects of 1860’s to 1890’s Ballarat but it closed at 4:30.
After returning our car on our last day we caught the City
Tram and the Tourist Shuttle to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) past
Melbourne’s Main Station – Flinders Street, which was dressed in Christmas
finery.
The MCG is a shared ground between Cricket and Australian
Rules Football, a cross between our Gaelic Football, Rugby and indigenous
Australian games, potentially a deadly combination, celebrated in a statue
outside the ground. The MCG was also the headquarters of the XVI Olympic Games
in 1956, held in and around Melbourne.
The stadium is absolutely huge seating 110,000, our guide
said that this year’s Boxing Day Test would not fill the ground, only 65,000
being expected against Sri Lanka, we don’t get close.
We went down to pitch level where some Sri Lankan’s were
practising and got our picture taken by our guide. We could see the new all
purpose scoreboard which shows everything, replays, hawkeye and even scores. Back
in 1959 to 1963 I worked at Trent Bridge in the then state of the art
scoreboard, showing both teams names and details, how out by whom and runs for
the batting side; overs runs and wickets for the bowlers. The scoreboard also
had an electronic unit showing the current batsmen’s scores and the batting
team’s total to date. The MCG bought a copy of this after the 1961 Australian
Tour of England.
We had a tour of the Australian National Sports Museum and
took pictures of two of Australia’s greats, Don Bradman and Dennis Lillee.
Back on the Tourist Shuttle Bus and the City Tram finally
walking over the bridge to the South bank and our hotel, seeing another view of
the MCG.
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After dinner a last look at the city before bed and an early
start for our plane to Cairns.
