Oh Victoria

It’s been a hectic few weeks. Emma’s parents, Ronnie and Eleanor were over and they kick started us into doing the tourist thing again. Ronnie and I went to Telstra Dome to see Melbourne and Central Coast in the football. Weather wise, it was one of the worst days since we’ve been here. Cold, windy and raining, Ronnie couldn’t believe he was in Australia as this weather had Northern Ireland written all over it. Once we got into the stadium it was fine as they had the roof closed to keep the elements out. Melbourne won 2-1 after going a goal down.

The next day we hired a car and did the Great Ocean Road again. We did it from the west in the van when we were travelling to Melbourne from Adelaide and weren’t that impressed. This time we came from the east and it was spectacular. We stopped off at Bells Beach along the way and almost got blown away by the wind. The weather was awful again and at one stage there was a wall of water and hail stones coming down and we thought we might have to turn back but we persevered and by the time we got to Lorne it was sunny. We went as far as the twelve apostles and got out and had a look around. It’s a fantastic sight and I’m glad we came back as the last time we just drove past in an effort to get to Melbourne as early as possible.

We had the hired car on the Sunday as well so we took a drive down to Phillip Island. They hold the motorbike grand prix down there, something I have no interest in. The island itself is home to penguins and seals as well as some nice beaches. We were going to hang about for the penguin parade but it was getting late and they weren’t due back from whatever they do all day in the ocean til 8.30pm by 4 o clock we had seen a lot of what the island had to offer and didn’t want to hang about for another 4 hours.

We took Ronnie and Eleanor to a few of our favourite restaurants on Chapel St. Gurkhas the Nepalese place and Mamacas, the Mediterranean place. They didn’t let us down, good food and good value but we went down to Acland St. another night and we aren’t as familiar with the eateries down there and ended up in a place called Greasy Joes. The same says it all. The food was fine though even if the portions were small and the waiter who served us had a sleeveless shirt on with tattoos all over his arms. I don’t think Eleanor had eaten in a place like that before, we kept telling her it was a St. Kilda institution.

Their visit was all to brief and the 8 days flew by (They had been in Australia for a about a month altogether), next thing we were waving them off on the bus to the airport. It was great to see them and took the edge of the homesickness.

Since then we have tried to do as much sightseeing as possible in our last few weeks.
We went up the Eureka Sky deck, one of the tallest buildings in the world. It has fantastic views of the city and suburbs. We also went to Victoria market for a look around and Donal took us to Pin Oak Court in Vermont AKA Ramsay St in Neighbours. You can’t come to Melbourne without going to see Ramsey St. I wouldn’t recommend doing the tour as it’s $60 each but if you can get someone to take you it’s definitely worth a trip. Donal has now started his own Neighbours tour, his unique selling point is that he blasts out the Wolfe Tones on the journey there. After that he also took us down to Brighton Beach and to Lygon St. in the Italian area of Carlton for a lovely Italian meal* (*this is not part of the Neighbours tour)

Last weekend I finally got to see Tasmanian Devils and I didn’t even have to go to Tasmania although it probably would have been a shorter journey to Tasmania as it took me over 3 hours to get to Healsville Sanctuary near Lilydale by tram, train and bus. It was an awful day, we were in the middle of 40 hours of incessant rain (yet still there is a drought here!) but I went anyway. I had to be there 1pm as there is a daily talk about the devils that I wanted to hear. I got there about 12.30 and raced through the park in the rain not sure if I was even going to see anything in the rain. When I got there the park keeper had already begun his talk in this enclosure with a big window that looked outside at another enclosed wooded area where they live. I couldn’t see any of them about but quickly realised that the crowd of people in the corner were onto something. There were 2 smaller windows with nests in them and in there were a baby and its mother both sleeping. The mother was a lot bigger than I thought and the baby was about the size that I expected them all to be. It was great to finally get to see them even though it wasn’t in the wild. Who knows if I’ll ever get to see them again as there numbers have halved over the last decade, the main reason for this is Devil Facial Tumour Disease is wiping them out.

I hung about watching them twitch while they slept for a while as people came and went. Some people thought I worked there so I indulged them with what I could remember from the park keeper’s talk. I walked back through the park trying to take pictures of the animals in the park (mostly indigenous animals: kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, dingos, koalas etc) but they were all sheltering from the rain and it was hard to get decent pics. I did get to see some birds of prey up close as they were brought into the reptile house. One was a wedge tail Eagle, similar to the ones we saw on our road trip that we almost hit as they dined on the road kill. They are so big they struggled to get up off the road as we drove towards them. This particular one was used in Wolf Blass wine adverts.

We’ve seen a few stars of Australian telly recently. Bridget from Neighbours was on the tram the other night coming back from the moonlit cinema and the guy who once played Darren in Neighbours now he plays someone else crossed the road in front of me and headed into the park with a footie. I did a double take and he gave me a look like “yeah it’s me, big deal”. When we went to the Homeless World Cup we saw the guy who played Carl Williams, a famous gangland killer, in UnderBelly. I think his name is Guyton Grantley. I nudged Emma and said “isn’t that….” I didn’t even finish what I was going to say when he said “G’day mate” and walked past us. Later as we left Fed Square we saw him again and he caught Emma staring at him and waved at her. Disgraced. I’ve also discovered that they guy who wrote the screenplay for the film Flatliners lives down the street and oddly sometimes works in the shop across the street from our building so I’ll be stalking him between now and when we leave on Monday.

Also at the Homeless World Cup I went and had a word with one of the Irish boys in between games. It was weird because your first instinct when you meet someone from home is to ask them where they are from but this guy was homeless so I didn’t know what to say to him. Thankfully he was a cheeky Dub (I think by the sounds of his accent) so he had plenty of chat and he started slagging me about my 1989 Liverpool replica shirt. Any time I annoy Emma now she threatens that I’ll be eligible for the Homeless World Cup next year if I don’t shut up. While we were there Ireland stuffed Holland 11-2 not bad for 7 minutes each way. Afghanistan won the whole thing. I can’t think of much worse than being homeless in Afghanistan, so fair play to those boys.

This is my last day at work. I've really enjoyed working with Victoria Police, the people here are great craic and I've made a few friends so that makes it even harder to leave. The other contractors I started with have all gone home to their countries for Crimbo. Although a couple of them got the road. Rebecca one of the Chinese girls was driving all the permanent staff mad as she would ask a question about some process then she would argue with the person giving her the advice that they were actually wrong. This didn't go down well and eventually she asked to leave. Old Jim from Geelong also got the heave ho, I'm not sure if it was because when he spoke to you he picked his nose and rubbed it into his cheek but I'm sure it didn't help. Emma's job with the TAC ends today also. She really loves working there as well as she's made a lot off friends and they're all good craic.

Melbourne is a fantastic place despite the weather and we've really enjoyed working and living here. It was given the title as the world’s most liveable city and we would agree that it’s a great place to live. We've spent more time here than anywhere else in Australia and we have nothing but great memories to take with us. We fly to Sydney on Monday.