Final day in Melbourne

As I mentioned at the end of the last blog that we didn’t really have a plan of the day, I should’ve recognised that to be a problem. With a lack of a plan, getting out of bed in any form of a hurry didn’t really happen. By the time we were all ready to head out, our options were slightly more limited than I suggested last night so, after a quick discussion, the only real option left was to head to the beach on St. Kilda. Given that the weather had picked up (pushing 26oC with a cloudless sky), this wasn’t a bad shout at all.

So, we all hopped in the wagon and headed down to St. Kilda. I had been warned before i left the UK by friends who had been to Melbourne and driven around that, if you drive near to where the trams operate, you may have to carry out a manoeuvre called a ‘J turn’. This is to ensure you don’t block the tram lines when you are waiting to turn right at a junction but, effectively forces you to sit in the middle of a busy junction with cars flying around you…i’d seen the notorious J turn in Melbourne yesterday and even after seeing it, it didn’t fill me with a lot of excitement. So, as we reached St Kilda (driving though a town called ‘Balaclava’ – I should point out that there is also a train stop called ‘Batman’ so this is not that ridiculous a name), we started driving over and on, the tram rails. Unbeknown to my fellow passengers, if the sat nav or our tour guides had requested a right turn over the tram rails, I was already planning to go another way and letting the sat nav sort out the issues…as fate would have it though, we were all spared the ‘J turn’ and got to the beach in pretty good time.

As it was a Saturday and was the first real sun of the Spring, the beach was absolutely mobbed. That being said, it was a glorious day and really brought out the Aussie attitude of spending time outdoors. There were loads of people running, cycling, skateboarding…plus, interestingly and possibly contrarily to the UK, very few smokers which was really good to see.

Before we actually hit the beach, we headed into the amusement park but mostly just for a look (its similar to M&D’s…definitely not like Alton Towers – for example, the main roller-coaster still had ‘a brakeman’ on the carriage…a guy who stands up the whole way round deciding how much to braking is required…no thanks). We did however stop and get some Churros…a bit of a theme here.

Amy with the Churros

After the park, we actually headed onto the beachfront and walked along it until we got to the St Kilda pier. We headed along the pier and grabbed a wee ice cream/drink before heading back to the beach. It was really nice and a good opportunity to enjoy the sun along the South of Australia as it has been quite elusive until now.

St Kilda Beach

Not the best picture quality here but, the guy in the photo is using a ‘Aqua-jet’ system to effectively let him hover…looks amazing

After we got back to the car, instead of heading back to Berwick, there was a strong ‘suggestion’ that we take a ‘quick’ detour. On the outward journey, Jen had pointed out one of the larger shopping malls happened to be just off the road to St Kilda. Now, ordinarily, this would have resulted in a pretty large spike in Amy’s ‘interest-o-meter’ however, to turn that spike into a, ‘this is not up for debate, we need to visit this mall’ mentality, something major would have to have happened. Well, it did. Jen also happened to mention that there was a ‘Tiffany’s’ store in the mall….disastrous news. We therefore ‘had’ to visit and after weighing up the options (i still had a week left of holiday, 5 days with just the two of us and 24 hours sitting side by side), i reckoned it was not worth the fury of driving past it.

So, we went into the mall….and to Tiffany’s….and it was not ‘quick’. That being said, the mall did have one highlight…it had another Churro stand. So, with the saying of ‘ach, i’m on holiday’ wearing thin, i decided to opt for the, ‘well you got to go to Tiffany’s, i’m going to treat myself to a Churro’. It was very good…although i cant possibly begin to describe how bad that probably was for the old health…it had both chocolate and peanut butter. Paul, being the trooper that he is, joined me in the fitness destroying Churro but, like me, agreed that it was probably worth it.

After finally leaving the mall (and a quick stop at Woolworths to get some salad/veg), we headed back to Jen and Paul’s house and got to enjoy an amazing BBQ. It was amazing as they threw on a fairly fantastic spread – even after a day of eating Churro’s’, it went down a treat.

After dinner and before the unenviable task of repacking our ever-increasing rucksacks, we sat down to enjoy a couple of cups of tea and watch the final day of India vs Australia 5 day International Cricket match. Again, for those playing at home, Amy lasted about 20 minutes (or 1 cup of tea) before the ‘i’m just going to rest my eyes’ statement occurred.

After a while, putting off the packing had gone on too long and we both left the cricket (and Jen and Paul) to go and pack…which we finally completed after about 30 minutes of packing. As difficult as it was, we both have been holding off buying anything as we keep saying, ‘we’ll just buy stuff in Sydney’…i’m not looking forward to the next bag-packing saga.

So, with bags packed and an early flight tomorrow (flights at 10Am and the car is due back at 8Am, over an hour from Berwick), it was off to bed before the final leg of our month long holiday…

Note: I should also mention here that I made a pretty annoying error today. As Matt and Nick both live in St Kilda, the plan was to meet them there and spend the day with them as well. So, I text Matt and told him that, when we reached the beach, I would let him know. So, we reached the beach, I went into my phone and text the last unknown number (I didn’t have Matt’s Aussie number saved but he had phoned me from it on the Thursday before). Anyway, to cut a long story short, when i was having dinner with Matt and Nick on Thurs, I received a call from an unknown number and ignored it. So, when I went into my phone in a rush to text Matt and used the last unknown number… I used the wrong one. I even tried calling him but go no response…it wasn’t until I had just got back to Berwick and Matt got in touch with me that I realised my mistake but by then it was too late…what.a.muppet. To make it worse, Matt was on the beach all day as well so there is every likelihood we walked past him…gutted doesn’t come close to explaining it. Sorry again Matthew!