patandgwenstripdownunder: Melbourne

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 2^nd 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.