Monday: arrived mid afternoon, just enough time to have a bit of a mooch round the city. The hotel's in a great location just outside of the central business district with a nice view of Flagstaff gardens. First impressions of Melbourne are very good, lots to see and do.
Tuesday: The aussie cricket team were playing a test match against Pakistan at the MCG so we decided to go and properly immerse ourselves in Aussie culture!
Fantastic stadium, not quite the hallowed turf of Yeadon CC but it will do!
The cricket itself was a bit boring to be honest, main moment of excitement was seeing Shane Watson get his first test century. He's fallen at the last hurdle on several occasions so become known as a bit of a nearly man and was actually dropped on 99 so luck seemed to be in his favour!
What provided the best entertainment was watching the group of young fans in the 'peasant' stand below, particularly seeing their numbers diminish over the day as more of them were ejected by stewards for crimes such as starting a Mexican wave - don't mess with Aussie stewards!
After the cricket we had a nice walk taking in some more of the sporting arenas (yes I know that will sound a bit geeky but I like looking at sports stadiums ok?!) This place really it stadium city with about 5 big arenas to its name. I couldn't even work out what some were used for - maybe for spare!!
Wednesday -
Glorious day so we took a trip down to St Kilda, the main seaside suburb of Melbourne. Was actually a little too hot for comfort. At one point we took sanctury in the freezer section of the local supermarket, pretending to look at ice creams just for a bit of respite!!
Also took in Luna Park which I was expecting to be like Blackpool pleasure beach but was more Kinderland in Scarborough! The entrance is pretty iconic so had to do the obligatory pictures!
In the evening we went to the Victoria market which every wednesday has a special night market with loads of cool food and craft stalls and live music. Was a brilliant night.
Thurs: We decided to explore a bit further out of the city centre and headed out to the districts of Carlton and Fitzroy. Another roasting day and we headed into the Melbourne Museum in search of good air con - and culture of course! Was another excellent museum though.
The plan for NYE night was to head to Federation Sq to watch one of the many organised firework displays. Unfortunately the elements were against us. There was an almighty thunderstorm and torrential rain and long story short we ended up back at our hotel room to see in new year. This turned out pretty well though as we were in a fantastic position to see fireworks both over the dockland area and flagstaff gardens right under our window.
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