Melbourne, its only a footstep away.
31st October 2006
We ventured out of NSW last weekend on our first interstate trip since arriving down under. On Friday night we packed our bags and jumped on the short flight down to Victoria, and the beautiful city of Melbourne.
Melbourne is the home of Neighbours, Australia’s only noteworthy export and apparently the third most visited soap opera set on the planet (behind ‘the grove’ – Byker Grove, and America – Sesame Street). As if that wasn’t draw enough, this trip also gave us the long awaited chance to rendezvous with my long lost drinking buddy, Geordie bed wetter Chris ‘Don Dons’ Donachie and his slightly better behaved better half Jen! Don Dons and Jen had jetted in from New Zealand earlier in the week, 4 months into their own journey of debauchery discovery.
We arrived late on Friday evening, so immediately met up in the hostel bar to make up for lost time in the only way a gaggle of Geordies (Charlotte now officially adopted following her efforts on the red wine in New Zealand) know how, by binge drinking until the first man / woman fell by the wayside (I agreed with Jen that it would be unfair at this stage to expose the first faller). The night ended in the small hours in a casino in the city, although none of us were alert enough to our surroundings to place a bet!
The next morning we were up bright eyed and bushy tailed (i.e. drunk) to catch the morning official neighbours tour. We were driven from the city centre in our own little neighbours fun bus, out to the Melbourne suburbs and Pin Oak Court, aka Ramsay Street. Once on location, we, along with our group of about 15 others were treated to a chronological history of all the residents of Australia’s most famous street, viewing the residences of the Ramsays, Robinsons, Mangels etc. In our drunken states we were even able to out bamboozle the tour guide with our knowledge of niche characters such as Mr Udagawa. For those who clearly had better things to do after school in the late 80’s, early 90’s please see:
http://www.perfectblend.net/neighbourhood/bio/mr-udagawa.htm
[This is Charlotte – What Chris’s blog fails to mention is that throughout the tour we were asked ‘who used to live in this house’ and along with fellow Neighbours enthusiasts we were guessing most houses correctly until the crowd got stumped and the tour guide gave us a clue ‘two girls lived here together’ – well that was all the prompting Chris needed before he bellowed (yell is not strong enough-a-word) ‘Beth and Annalise!’. Now other Neighbours addicts will probably have a knowing smile on there faces at this point, but for those of you who have never watched Neighbours (what were you doing at 5.35pm in the 90’s?), Beth and Annalise were probably the fittest cast members to grace the street (Flick Scully aside) – clearly a childhood fantasy of Chris’s!]
After some cheesy photo opportunities we jumped back on the fun bus and a trip past the lassiters complex, where with a lot of imagination you could see the set of the hotel complex, before finally arriving at Erinsbourgh High School. Not wanting to hang around school gates for too long, we climbed back aboard the fun bus for our trip back to the city, during which we got to enjoy some nostalgic episodes such as Scott and Charlene’s wedding, Des and Daphne’s Wedding and Madge and Harrold’s, wait for it….wedding.
In the afternoon we went our separate ways to re-charge the batteries for a couple of hours, before re-convening in the beach side suburb of St Kilda. St Kilda had a nice feel to it, a decent sea front with pier, some good shops and some great views back to the city. We popped in to a bar / restaurant for a quite early evening drink, and 6 hours, 9 jugs of beer, 14 glasses of wine, and 2 meals each later we left via taxi (or so I’m reliably informed) back to the city and the much needed bed.
Sunday morning saw Charlotte and I take in some culture at the museum (this is culture Aussie style ….i.e. the original set from the Robinson’s kitchen complete with Scott and Charlene’s wedding cake). In the afternoon we met up with Donny and Jen who had the great idea of hiring bikes. We spent the next few hours acting our age again and enjoyed the lovely weather whilst taking in the Yarra River and the botanical gardens, complete with crazy eels.
And that was just about it, we jumped back on the plane to Sydney on Sunday evening, for some much needed R&R. We had a great weekend away and it was great to catch up with some old friends…..if anyone else fancies popping over for a weekend then we know a nice bar in Melbourne in which we can meet you!
Tags: Alcohol, Australia, Melbourne, Oz
Chris and Charl
Agghhh jeez mate – and to think I’ve missed Melbourne twice on my visits to Oz! Will clearly have to go back again … Charlene’s WEDDING CAKE – it must be a must must must!!! And the crazy heels too! Melbourne is surely some amazing place!!
Cheers guys, sounds great fun as always – and look forward to seeing the handle bar Chris!!
Pete & Margie XX