Had a nice evening back at Stu and Teish’s apartment on Sunday, including an impromptu whisk(e)y tasting session where we conculded that a relatively cheap local malt from Tasmania tastes as good as Johnny Walker Blue Label. Interesting if you want to save a few quid, eh?
I had a very straightforward trip down to Melbourne yesterday and bagged a nice hotel room in St. Kilda, which is Melbourne’s only beach resort a few Km south of the main city’s central business district, or CBD. I didn’t do much apart from check out the local area and relax once I got here, and today I’ve been up into the CBD to do a few sights, typical Matt organisation though, I got to the Queen St. Market too late, it was closed already, the Moving Image Museum was closed too, but I did get up the Rialta Tower which claims to have the highest observation deck in the southern hemisphere. It was certainly an impressive sight.
After this I’ve had a wander around the city, it’s pretty nice and the thing to do seems to be the cafe culture rather than really impressive sights as such. They say Melbourne has a much more European feel to it as compared with other Australian cities and I think that’s fair comment. What was somewhat amusing this morning is that it’s really not that warm, but people are still sitting and eating alfresco (as did I) wearing thick tops and jackets. More hard core people are seen to be walking the streets with vests and T-shirts.
Tonight I’m off to meet Jim who I used to work with in London who now lives here. By chance he also lives in St Kilda and he’s picked the seediest looking pub to meet in, he’s already warned me to be wary of walking into the small bar inside which is gay. So God knows what is in store later…
Tomorrow, assuming I can get out of bed, I’m going to pick up my new home, a little campervan, if I can find the place. My plan then is to do the ocean road near here for a couple of nights perhaps, then attempt to book the ferry over to Tassie for Friday night, all being well.
For now, I’m off to line my stomach with a loaf of bread 🙂