{"id":2126,"date":"2012-12-07T18:50:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T10:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/?page_id=2126"},"modified":"2017-08-17T21:45:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T13:45:50","slug":"melbourne-2012","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/?page_id=2126","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday 17th November<\/p>\n

We\u2019d set both of our phone alarms to go off at 6.30 after spending a week getting our wake up time earlier than usual.\u00a0 Which of course involved going to bed earlier than 2am every day.\u00a0 And believe it or not, we were both awake at 5.30 and decided to get the show on the road.\u00a0 We enjoyed a peaceful early breakfast of a little toast and honey and 2 cuppas before heading out the door, and did our usual, of driving to my in-laws to say farewell to them, and then catching a taxi the short remaining distance to the airport.\u00a0 Once we\u2019re in that taxi it feels as if the adventure is beginning!<\/p>\n

The flight was as smooth as silk and went so quickly!\u00a0 Well, 3\u00bd hours is a very short flight anyway, and the meal (thank you Qantas!) helps to fill some time too.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the difference between dry, brown country WA from the air compared to green, lush Victoria.<\/p>\n

\"Brown

Brown Western Australian Country<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Green

Green Victorian Country<\/p><\/div>\n

Plus the view of looking through clouds will never cease to enthral me!<\/p>\n

And then we were in Melbourne.\u00a0 It\u2019s the second time we\u2019ve landed there but the first time we\u2019ve collected our bags and gone out of the doors.\u00a0 The other time was just a stop-over on the way to Hawaii and I\u2019m so very sorry I never did write that story \ud83d\ude41\u00a0 The taxi driver was virtually a \u2018no speak zone\u2019 but we were content sitting in the back watching the journey and I was greatly relieved to find that he was not a part-time rocket pilot as most of our airport-to-hotel taxi drivers seem to have been in the past.<\/p>\n

It was 5pm by the time we got up to our room on the 21st<\/sup> floor of \u2018Oaks on Market\u2019 and the view was absolutely spectacular!\u00a0 We\u2019d paid extra for a \u2018view\u2019 and it was well worth every penny.\u00a0 Or cent, if you prefer.\u00a0 One shock was to see an actual Gondola being \u2018poled\u2019 along the river, exactly the way they are in Venice.\u00a0 It had to have been a true Venetian Gondola surely?\u00a0 I saw it a few times through the week.<\/p>\n

\"A

A Gondola??? on the Yarra<\/p><\/div>\n

We were ready for some lunch, considering the meal on the plane had been at our usual breakfast time, and the little bit of toast at 6am had long since worn off before we were fed on the plane. \u00a0So we decided to pop our valuables into the safe and David pushed too many buttons \u2013 or was it not enough buttons? \u2013 and then it wouldn\u2019t lock.\u00a0 In fact it had completely taken offence and had taken up a constant beep, beep, beeeeeep LOL\u00a0 We hurriedly dialled 9 for reception, and they arrived very quickly and fixed it for us, as well as giggling with us about it happening.\u00a0 Phew!\u00a0 Nice staff makes such a difference to a hotel.<\/p>\n

This, though we didn\u2019t know it yet, was the Eureka Tower as viewed through our hotel window.<\/p>\n

\"From

From our Hotel Window<\/p><\/div>\n

We decided we were not in the mood for wandering around the city.\u00a0 We were a bit too hungry to risk not finding a suitable place to eat before we expired!!! \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 So we decided we would eat in the hotel restaurant, but were very surprised to see it in darkness.\u00a0 On asking at reception they said that we could enjoy the same menu in the bar \u2013 so we did.\u00a0 We started with some cheesey garlic bread \u2013 I love garlic bread but could really live without the cheese – and we both had lemon pepper barramundi which was very nice indeed.\u00a0 Not a large meal, we were glad we\u2019d had the bread as well, but satisfactory.<\/p>\n

Right, our tummies satisfied, we were *now* ready to go out exploring.\u00a0 It was almost dark, but it didn\u2019t matter in the least.<\/p>\n

The obvious course was to turn left out of our hotel, down Market Street, to see if we could explore the area that we could see from our window, which we now know was Southbank, and the Southgate Shopping Centre.\u00a0 Imagine our surprise when we saw a horse drawn carriage crossing the bridge!\u00a0 The carriage was all lit up and the ponies had tall white feathers on their heads and it was all terribly grand and beautiful.\u00a0 Down the river side was a whole row of restaurants, all open on the side along the footpath and this area must have stretched for a few hundred metres.\u00a0 Plenty of choice that\u2019s for sure!\u00a0 And the lights from the city reflecting on the water of the lovely Yarra River were such a picture.<\/p>\n

\"Yarra

Yarra River at Night<\/p><\/div>\n

After trying three \u2018711\u2019 stores that we found along our meanderings, we managed to buy some honey in one, some margarine (yuk \u2013 we\u2019re organic butter people usually!) and some soy milk in another and *finally* we found some bread in a third.\u00a0 Needless to say, David also found a bottle shop and got some wine.<\/p>\n

We eventually meandered back to our room and the view was even more amazing at night.\u00a0 I absolutely fell in love with it and we took to sitting in a darkened room with the curtains open to drink it all in.\u00a0 One of the buildings we could see out there had a letter \u2018f\u2019 on it.\u00a0 Nothing else, but it was the same font that Facebook use so I wondered if it was their building.\u00a0 There was also another tall building and we had a discussion about which was the tallest.\u00a0 Needless to say I was wrong, but that\u2019s a story for tomorrow so I won\u2019t tell you about it now.<\/p>\n

\"Crown

Crown Casino & Tower<\/p><\/div>\n

And then David tried to log in to the web on our tiny laptop but had no joy at all.\u00a0 We\u2019ve never used our mobile web on that before and it did not want to know!\u00a0 We tried ringing the helpline but they said that there was a queue and they would ring us back on our registered phone number.\u00a0 Well *that*, my friend, is no use to us!!!!\u00a0 We have mobile internet so we can go away with it, not so we can sit at home next to the phone in case of problems.\u00a0 So we gave up.\u00a0 We did not want to wait on hold on our mobiles for half the night.<\/p>\n

Suddenly there was a noise outside and David looked up and saw a flash of light so we went to the window to see what was happening.\u00a0 And there was another flash and a big fireball across the river to the right.\u00a0 It was accompanied by \u2018crowd noises\u2019 of awe and we realised that something was going on.\u00a0 It turned out that there were 7 tall towers over there, maybe 2 floors high each, and spaced about 10 metres apart in a long row, and what seemed to be timed fireballs were coming out of the top of them.\u00a0 I asked David the time and it was 9pm so we wondered if it was some form of clock \u2013 or at least a way of marking the hour, and decided to look out again in an hour\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

\"Crown

Crown Casino Gas Fire Display<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Crown

Crown Casino Gas Fire Display<\/p><\/div>\n

Sure enough, at 10pm it happened again.\u00a0 I went on the \u2018net on my phone, (pah to iiNet LOL) Googled it, and discovered that it\u2019s part of the Crown Casino and the flames are gas powered.\u00a0 Every time we saw the display it was different.\u00a0 It\u2019s apparently run by a computer and as long as there are not high winds or a total fire ban it happens on the hour from 8pm to midnight each night.\u00a0 It truly was fascinating to watch and we couldn\u2019t drag ourselves away every time we heard it.\u00a0 On one occasion I was even in bed but not sleeping so I leapt up to watch.\u00a0 And what front line seats we had to view it for the week!<\/p>\n

But the day was over.\u00a0 Even though we were 3 hours ahead and it was only 7pm in Perth (and we usually go to bed at 2am) we were tired, and snuggled up in a tiny corner of our truly massive, larger than king-sized bed.<\/p>\n

And I will finish this page here because tomorrow is to be a very full day and will need a page all of its own \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Next page\/…<\/a><\/p>\n

Please feel free to leave a comment in the fields below before leaving this page. Email addresses will not be used in any way, nor displayed for anyone to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday 17th November We\u2019d set both of our phone alarms to go off at 6.30 after spending a week getting our wake up time earlier than usual.\u00a0 Which of course involved going to bed earlier than 2am every day.\u00a0 And … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2126","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2126"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3922,"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2126\/revisions\/3922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mayl.id.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}