Skip to main content

Open in Melbourne

We had rough plans to spend a day in Melbourne on this trip. They crystalised when a colleague mentioned that you could buy reasonably priced passes to the outer courts of the Australian Open tennis tournament. B loves her tennis and Alex is learning so it was great timing on our part, however unintentional.


Rather than drive we caught the train from Bendigo. This necessitated an early morning. We were very fortunate finding a car park spot at the station,then we quickly purchased a ticket and ran inside.


The Velocity sets are some of the fastest trains in Australia, running at up to 160 km/h. Not so fast in the international scheme of things, but quicker than driving between the cities.

I found it quite comfortable and I enjoyed the scenery outside. As we started approaching the centre of Melbourne we passed freight lines and marshalling yards. This looked like a real railway, not like the separation of commuter and freight that occurs around Sydney.


Unfortunately, Alex had been playing on the iPad and got motion sick, eventually throwing up. Once at Melbourne we headed by tram for Bourke Street Mall to find him some replacement clothes.

The tram stopped right outside the H&M store and B's eyes lit up. Fortunately they had some fairly cheap and good looking substitutes for his vomit stained clothes.

After a little more shopping we caught the free 70a tram to the tennis centre, stopping near Hisense Arena. There were long queues due to the highly seeded Azarenka playing so, following the directions of the information desk, we walked around to the show courts, watching Alejandro Gonzalez upset 16th seed Fabio Fognini.


Alex slept through half of it, then we went around and grabbed some expensive hot dogs from the crowded stands around Margaret Court Arena.

At Show Court 3 we caught a bit of 9th seen David Ferrer playing Tomasz Bellucci. After an awfully expensive but needed slushie drink we walked back to Hisense Arena and caught the first three games of Venus Williams against Torro-Flor.




But it was getting late. After a tram ride back to the city we walked quickly to Southern Cross Station, making it just in time to catch the Shepparton service via Bendigo.



This three carriage locomotive hauled train was absolutely packed with no spare seats, so we had to stand/sit on the floor until around Kyneton. It wasn't as clean nor as fast at the Velocity set. Still, at least Alex didn't get motion sick.



We arrived back into Bendigo at a little after 8.30pm, hot, sticky, hungry and very thirsty. Just down the road from the station we found a decent Chinese restaurant run by a Malaysian. The food was quite nice and we quickly finished the jug of soft drink. Then straight back to the hotel, where all the proper cark parks had been taken and we had to drive up on the kerb (with their permission).


An exhausting day, but Alex had said he enjoyed some of the tennis and we adults definitely did. After watching a little on the hotel television, we had to agree that it's better actually being there.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IKEA Museum

We have a packed itinerary today. Flat packed and assembled with an Allen key. There are patches of snow on the ground that weren't there the previous evening. We are a bit sad to leave the Duxiana after the comfy beds and the breakfast of cold cuts, fruits and hot waffles. I tried the Swedish caviar on my boiled egg. It was... Interesting. I was very disappointed to realise that, after talking it up for months, I had forgotten the Disgusting Foods Museum in Malmö yesterday. Too late now. We catch another Oresundstag train, for a bit over an hour. Past yesterday's Lund, past increasingly white fields and towns to Älmhult, home of IKEA. The conductor warns us that the train will split in two so we have to move carriages forward. Unfortunately, there we no spare sets of chairs for all of us. The IKEA Museum showcases the history of the furniture company, along with temporary exhibitions. One of these was "Hacking IKEA," about using IKEA ob...

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It...