Thursday 3 March 2011
Sorry, I’m somewhat slow in updating, well i’m on holiday!
Today I woke up thinking in the UK its still my birthday, result, so a leisurely start, onto the bus, down to the station, onto the train and into the centre. All very simple, its a commute (if i can call it that) that i am enjoying, feeling comfortable with, perhaps even a commute i would like to do one day. Anyway that aside it was a beautiful day (may not have been but i’m not having you think Australia is not what its cracked out to be), so yes it rained on the way to St Kilda but only a teeny bit.
St Kilda you are all thinking, where the heck is that, get your maps out, look south of melbourne and its on the beach kinda, its a lovely little area, very much lvoed by the backpackers and it seems to host a lot of festivals throughout the season. Getting there was rather easy, not sure tantine agreed, but walking is good exercise, (father take note) and its about seeing as much as you can. Anyway about 2km later a left turn then another then a little right turn we found the main street, on route passing the famous St Kilda amusement park which has its’ entry through a clown’s face.
Lunch was at Rococo, an Italian restaurant on the afor mentioned road, it was lovely, very much worth a revisit, and incidentally the waitress had the same stunning hair that Lottie has, perhaps she has a twin in Melbourne?! Well lunch needed time to shift so we had a leisurely walk around the Botanic Gardens, now you think Botanic and you think Kew right? This was neither Botanic or Kew, something more resembling roundabouts in Southern France, it was free, we didn’t stay long.
Now at this point tantine doest quite realise my plan to walk about 10 miles, although so far most of the route is her doing and we are now walking back towards the corner of Albert Park, past the French Institute and a few other buildings, very pretty. Onto the 96 tram and down the side of Albert Park planning to go and see the Grand Prix track (motor racing for those thinking this is a homophobic term), we got of half way and the walk began.
To be fair walking where our friend Lewis will be driving in less than 20 days is pretty cool, so we walked around the track for a fair bit and took in the views of the stunning Melbourne Skyline before ending up back in town for a well deserved and absolutely massive ice cream. I’m talking bigger than eating a grapefruit, amazing!
The south bank (that’s the equivalent of the north bank to you North of the equator) is really cool, has a Nobu so must be good and is just ringing with people, many business people too. So it was around 5pm, rush hour and I didn’t fancy finding a train at Flinders (that’s what the locals call it, opposed to Flinders Street Station) so we walked all the way to Jolimont/MCG which is on the line back to the ranch. Slightly longer than realised but allowed us to take in the skyline again, a great view of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and some god awful bells, so flat it made the choir at Redhill URC sound good (Chris hope you didn’t just spit wine all over yourself).
Anyway that was about it really, back to Jolimont, back to Greensborough, met Phil, caught the bus, got home had dinner bed and ready to start another day.
Until next time.