To Melbourne


So after getting over the shock of the snow, we loaded my kit into the car and headed off towards Rob and Carol’s place so that we could leave for Melbourne around 8am.  This was achieved on time and off we went.  The driving was pretty easy (especially for me as passenger).

It appeared that nearly all the canola crops had set seed and moved away from yellow.  One exception was spotted in the distance.
We then got our first weirdness of having to go at 60kph because of an ‘accident’.  This appeared to be a truck which had run well off the road and needed towing back on.  No biggie, so why block a lane?  (Looking to the future, the driver was probably trying to work out what the heck was going on with petrol supplies in the Gundagai area!)
On, on to Holbrook where we stopped for a cuppa near the submarine.
It turns out the town used to be called Germanton, but changed names when a Captain Holbrook won the VC for taking his submarine through the Dardenelles in WW1 and sinking a Turkish battleship.

More “on down the road” with no excitements and into Victoria.  After several kilometres we got our first view of the City under a bridge.

Another bridge close in to our destination had a good design.
After navigating the CBD into the apartment, dump our stuff and head for the Melbourne Cricket Ground (hereafter 'the G') to get our kit for the marathon.  A pleasant stroll with a confusing conclusion since we first found the area to get our bags, but before they could be issued we had to go elsewhere to get our running numbers.   Then it turned out they tried to line me up with a a size S singlet, which I rejected in favour of an M: I usually get a Large size.  Obviously someone stuffed the sizing.

Next on the menu was an evening meal, which needed to be fitted in before Rob and Carol went to see “South Pacific” (I had passed on paying $100 for a musical.)   As the apartment was close to Little Bourke St, East Asian food was in our future.  I spotted a rather tatty looking place ...

... full of Chinese looking people (usually a good indicator of decent food from this culture) and mentioning the word ‘Sichuan’.  This got the nod even though it lacked a pretty spruiker on the pavement.

It was very nice indeed.  As I am a spicier diner than the others I went for ‘Sizzling Beef with Cumin’ rated as 2 chillies.  Very tasty and not that hot if you dodged the bits of red vegetables.  So we shared and found the dishes ordered by the others were also up to standard.  The place was quite full with rapid turnover.

Back to the apartment for typing this up while watching ESPN gridiron.  As I watched the game I became aware of the sounds of revelry coming in the window.   From looking for the source of the ruckus it appeared to be a bar or club of some form playing live music at 200dB.  The squeals of the patrons, and occasional crash of a bin of bottles being lobbed into a skip added to the row.  To my surprise I got to sleep and only stirred during the night to notice it was still going at 0130 but had stopped by 0430.

I was reminded of our time in Dar es Salaam where the Police Officers Mess used to act in this way three nights a week.  This is probably the only resemblance between Victoria and Dar es Salaam!  I still find this totally unnecessary and would love to see some level of Government enforce noise regulation!  (Of course in Dar es Salaam, the enforcers had interests in the offending institution and that would never happen in Melbourne.)

Links to the rest of this set of posts.
Day 2
Day 3 (the race report)
Day 4

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