On my first afternoon in the city, I decided to acclimatise myself with Melbourne by going on the free city bus that goes round 13 different points of interest in the city, including the markets, docklands, cricket stadium, shrine of remembrence etc etc. it was a good way to get my bearings.the next few days were mainly spent job hunting and looking for cheap clothes shops to buy work clothes, but I did find time to go to Victoria markets on a wednesday evening which was good fun, with live music, lots of quirky clothes and craft stalls, food and alcohol.
I was very lucky to land myself a job starting the next Monday. Good job too as things are super expensive in Melbourne and I would have really struggled if I wasn't earning. Then it was pretty much life as usual, working, going to the gym, seeing friends in the evenings and finding fun things to do at weekends. The first weekend me and Sarah went to the old Melbourne Gaol where Ned Kelly was imprisoned and hung. It was quite interesting in a dark sort of way. We went on the tour with one of the guards and sarah got booked in, I think she was arrested for thievery, or arson, or narcotics smuggling or something! We also found some of the quirky bars to try out - Sarah was very good at finding these, we went to one called the Croft Institute, set out like a crazy science lab with test tubes everywhere and you could buy drinks in a syringe! Then there was one called Berlin, with an East and a West side!
The weekend after my trip to Sydney was the Moomba festival and it was over the Labour day weekend which meant a day off on Monday. The Moomba festival was a free festival set up along the banks of the Yarra river just south of the CBD (Central business district). This was a really good festival with lots of different stages and acts on, along with waterskiing and skijumping on the Yarra river, and the birdman competition (attaching homemade wings/balloons/anything you can think of and flinging yourself off a 4m high platform into the Yarra River) which was hilarous. I spent quite a few of my days just sitting in the grass, watching the water skiing and listening to the music.
26 March was the grand prix weekend. You could hear the cars in the city, 5km away from Albert park where it was held. I went for the day on Sunday. Gates opened at 10.30 and I was there in time to have a good look around all of the stall and stuff before the racing started. It was just like a festival really with lots of different stalls and exhibitions to have a look at. I quite liked the action zone where the motorbikers were doing stunts and there was a sphere that looked like an Atlasphere from the Gladiators - it started off with 1 bloke on a motorbike riding round inside it, then the numbers kept increasing until there were 4 of them inside. It was pretty impressive! I saw some celebrity cars (well, some celebrities were doing a race lap in cars and each one had their name stuck on the front - the only name I recognised was Brian Macfadden from Westlife). Fortunately for me, my friend Katy had been for the previous 3 days and had sussed out the best place to sit and get a good view of the racing, so I went to sit next to her. It was just on a hill on a corner so you could see the cars when they slowed down and then accelerate again afterwards - well done katy! anyway, the race didnt start until 5pm, but there were V8 races and the celebrity race and then they did a time trial when they set off a regular car, a V8 30 seconds behind it and then an F1 car 20 seconds behind that, the theory being that they'd all cross the finish line at the same time, which they pretty much did! It was a lovely afternoon, really sunny. The grand prix was fun to watch, I'm very glad I had my earplugs though - they aren;t half noisy! To be honest, I got pretty confused who was in the lead though as as soon as they all started going off for pit stops, I had no idea who was winning. it was a really good day though.The next weekend was my road trip to the Great Ocean Road, and last weekend I went to Williamstown which was an hours boat ride down the Yarra river. It was an old historical port and I did a walk and went to the beach and generally had a poke about, it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
And that's me pretty much up to date for Australia for the minute. Will post again when I have more excitement to tell...
No comments:
Post a Comment