Meandering around Melbourne
(22nd - 26th November)
The final leg of our journey. Gill dropped us off at Canberra train station and we said our goodbyes as we headed for our final coach-train-coach journey. It was going to take all day to get to Melbourne from Canberra because they were having to replace part of the rail service with busses, thanks to a train derailment (apparently since our original departure from Melbourne to Sydney).
We arrived in Melbourne about 11 hours later and stayed in South Yarra, about 10 minutes south of the city by train. This was a great area for convenience and atmosphere. We were on Tourak Road which is an excellent eating and shopping area. Shame we couldn't afford to make use of it though! We finished some errands (Christmas cards & sending presents home etc) and that was about it for our last time in Melbourne.
On our last night we paid a visit to Ross and Sally who cooked us another great meal. Ross has had a shoulder operation since we left so he was recovering but they were great hosts again. We bid farewell to our new friends and headed back to our hotel for our last night in Australia. It was a sad evening for me.
The next morning we checked out, chilled out, had one last decent Melbournian coffee and then made our way to the airport in the afternoon. As always, we were a bit too keen and got there a little too early to check in straight away. When we eventually did we were told we would get food on the plane, so we just chilled out in the departure lounge. I made a comment to Chris at how strange the clouds looked, and later we heard a really annoying noise outside. It wasn't until an announcement some time later that we realised Melbourne airport was in the middle of a big thunder storm and that annoying noise had been a warning to the ground workers outside - they had closed the airport for most the time we'd been there. So our flight to NZ, unsurprisingly, was delayed.
We managed to get on the plane about half and hour to an hour later than planned but I could still see lightning outside. As you may remember from a previous Melbourne post, one thing I dislike is thunderstorms, especially if I'm caught outside in them. Well, I decided at this point that I hate them even more when I'm sat in a big hunk of metal on a runway! I was almost grateful when we were delayed further on the runway. That was when we were delayed by about 15 minutes. In total, we ended up being on the tarmac for a total of 2 hours just waiting to take off. There was a queue and several planes having to land (presumably they'd been circling and were probably more of a priority for fear of running out of fuel). I invented a new game, "guess the airline", along similar lines to car snooker. I could see lights in the distance right through to them landing on the runway next to us, so I set Chris and I the task of guessing which airline it would be that landed next, just by looking at their headlights in the air. Chris got bored before the game had even started, and I got bored after about 4 planes (for info, most of them were Virgin Blue)! I guess 2 hours on the tarmac was probably too much of a delay.
The plane eventually took off and we were finally on our way to the next part of our adventure, Christchurch, New Zealand. Bye bye Oz, you've been good to me and I'll miss you!
The final leg of our journey. Gill dropped us off at Canberra train station and we said our goodbyes as we headed for our final coach-train-coach journey. It was going to take all day to get to Melbourne from Canberra because they were having to replace part of the rail service with busses, thanks to a train derailment (apparently since our original departure from Melbourne to Sydney).
We arrived in Melbourne about 11 hours later and stayed in South Yarra, about 10 minutes south of the city by train. This was a great area for convenience and atmosphere. We were on Tourak Road which is an excellent eating and shopping area. Shame we couldn't afford to make use of it though! We finished some errands (Christmas cards & sending presents home etc) and that was about it for our last time in Melbourne.
On our last night we paid a visit to Ross and Sally who cooked us another great meal. Ross has had a shoulder operation since we left so he was recovering but they were great hosts again. We bid farewell to our new friends and headed back to our hotel for our last night in Australia. It was a sad evening for me.
The next morning we checked out, chilled out, had one last decent Melbournian coffee and then made our way to the airport in the afternoon. As always, we were a bit too keen and got there a little too early to check in straight away. When we eventually did we were told we would get food on the plane, so we just chilled out in the departure lounge. I made a comment to Chris at how strange the clouds looked, and later we heard a really annoying noise outside. It wasn't until an announcement some time later that we realised Melbourne airport was in the middle of a big thunder storm and that annoying noise had been a warning to the ground workers outside - they had closed the airport for most the time we'd been there. So our flight to NZ, unsurprisingly, was delayed.
We managed to get on the plane about half and hour to an hour later than planned but I could still see lightning outside. As you may remember from a previous Melbourne post, one thing I dislike is thunderstorms, especially if I'm caught outside in them. Well, I decided at this point that I hate them even more when I'm sat in a big hunk of metal on a runway! I was almost grateful when we were delayed further on the runway. That was when we were delayed by about 15 minutes. In total, we ended up being on the tarmac for a total of 2 hours just waiting to take off. There was a queue and several planes having to land (presumably they'd been circling and were probably more of a priority for fear of running out of fuel). I invented a new game, "guess the airline", along similar lines to car snooker. I could see lights in the distance right through to them landing on the runway next to us, so I set Chris and I the task of guessing which airline it would be that landed next, just by looking at their headlights in the air. Chris got bored before the game had even started, and I got bored after about 4 planes (for info, most of them were Virgin Blue)! I guess 2 hours on the tarmac was probably too much of a delay.
The plane eventually took off and we were finally on our way to the next part of our adventure, Christchurch, New Zealand. Bye bye Oz, you've been good to me and I'll miss you!
posted by wobblepop at 6:29 am
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