Day 17 & 18 - Melbourne - The Comp Day 2 and Exploring The City

The Girls were going through much the same routine as yesterday with Kerrie taking unenviable job of making sure they were where they needed to be and in what they needed to be in.  This left Tim and I to duck out of all responsibilities and go exploring Melbourne.

I last lived in Melbourne when I was in the Army in 1989 (or somewhere around there).  I used to ride into the city, either by bike or train and go wandering around looking into all the book shops and finding those back alley places that sell those really odd things (no not that type of thing....). I would spend hours in some of those shops, before spending a few hours at the movies or in the library.

Tim and I spent Sunday exploring and were joined by Kerrie and the girls on Monday.  Tim and I drove in and on Monday we court the city circle team from harbour land. 

The kids were fascinated but he tram, but after being squeezed in with many other people and being thrown around at every stop they decided that there may be better ways to travel.  

The State Library

The state library is one of those places that is a bit of a "shrine" to me.  Puppa used to demonstrate at the planetarium that was here when the building was the home of the museum. I've spent a lot of time in this building.   

The kids was rather over awed by the library, Tim found the La Trobe reading room especially oppressive. Too quiet. 

We went on to look at some of the displays. There was a history of Victoria expressed in books and other objects. The collection of matches and match boxes was especially interesting too the kids. The collection included a display of Ned Kelly's armour.  On Saturday Tim spent quite some time reading the information about the Kelly gang. 

Tim challenged me to a game of chess on the big set in the kids room. Much to my shame he managed to beat me.  I think I need to be a little more careful when playing him next time. 

Lunch

On Saturday Tim was a bit of a chicken when it came to lunch. He demanded we have something normal. On Sunday I got the chance to be a bit more adventurous. I had a Japanese street food that consisted of an egg coated fried batter wrapped around meat and veg, somewhat like a cross between a wrap and a spring roll. Really nice.  The girls had Chinese and Tom had a rather unsatisfactory pie.  

China Town

Our wander through China town found it less interesting than I remember it. I think the Chinese community have expanded to enrich the rest of the city, resulting in China Town having less of a dramatic contrast. There are some interesting places here, but you have to look for them. 

Fitzroy Gardens

These gardens are built for exploration. They are so old and there are so many little hidden spots here to find. Even on a overcast autum day they were impressive. 

The kids enjoyed the fairy tree and the miniature Tudor Village. Sarah loved the Fairies. Finding a bunch of Book Crossing books somebody had left at the fairy tree was the icing on the cake.  I think we will see if we can do something with Book Crossing when we get home.  We certainly have enough books to release. 

The Rest

There is so much of this stuff hidden around corners in this place, you could spend ages just wandering around sticking your nose into places and looking for the odd and interesting. 

We found a curiosity shop filled with skeletons and other scientific stuff like stuffed birds and butterflies. 

The Royal Arcade is home to not only Gog and Magog, but a four tune teller who could be strength out of Harry Potter and a shop filled with babushka dolls. 

On our way in for dinner we found we had parked almost out the front of Critica Hit, a shop filled with sci fi, fantasy and gaming paraphnaila. It took a lot of self control to be able to walk out of there without at least a Dr Who Tardis tea pot. 

Dinner

Meals are always a difficult problem for us. This is not made any easier when presented with the number of options for food that are in Melbourne. We ended up stepping out of our comfort zone and eating at a Japanese cafe. I had a yummy ramen soup, the others having various other dishes.  We could have got half the food and shared it and still been full. 

The time in Melbourne City turned out to be a bit of an unexpected highlight for me. A lot of nostalgia and the excitement of how much the place has changed kept it interesting.  There is so much we did not get to, we would need at least a wee (and a second mortgage) to see it all. Over all I think we did well. 

The kids are happy to leave Melbourne and its fickle weather behind. They had a great comp but it is time to move on. 

Day 16 - Melbourne - The Comp - Day 1

Today was spent at the first day of the Champion of Champions Championship.

This was a bit of an eye opener.  So many people, so many kids and so much organisation.

Nine stages at once

Sarah - In the middle

Emily - Pointing nicely

Emily getting off the ground

I have no idea how they manage to pull something like this off with so few problems.  In fact I would guess that there were no real problems that did not start with a kid not being where they were supposed to be.  The main reason the kids were not where they were supposed to be was just down to the limitations of the PA system in the centre.  I was impressed.  The volunteers were very helpful and had a handful trying to heard some quiet young kids around. 

I'll leave the kids and Kerrie to tell about the comp, but must say I'm proud and impressed at how they performed and got themselves organised.  Great kids. Love them very much.  Tim especially deserves a great pat on the back for putting up with almost ten hours of piping and dancing. 

See if you can find Sarah

Tomorrow Tim and I have the day off and will see about exploring the city. 

Day 15 - Melbourne

And the forecast for today is:  Rain, Wind, Sun, Wind, Cold, Sun with the distinct chance of frozen water falling from the sky.

Lets try that again.

The forecast for today is:   Melbourne weather....  four seasons in one day.

Today started at approximately  11pm last night, when a caravan arrived in the site next to ours.  About an hour later they had finished backing, moving forward, sideways and for all I could tell upwards to get there van appropriately sited, accompanied at the top of the voice with "yeah, just another foot, nah, I think it should go over a bit,  etc....  You get the picture.

The morning continued with a number of convoys of people proceeding to the bathrooms.  Apparently this requires vocal evocation at a high volume in a number of languages prior to use, not sure why, but evidence shows this is required. Later in the day I tried out the loud vocalisation prior to usage of the bathroom myself, but it did not seem to have any impact on efficiency.  I will continue my study of this behaviour tonight and report on any further findings. It is possible I'll have to consult with one of the people to ascertain the exact requirement for the vocalisation.

Later in the morning (about 4am) we were given further examples of loud vocalisation from a pair of inhabitants of the caravan two down, who were accompanied by the rumble of a diesel engine as they attempted to hitch up a caravan.  It will be noted that the addition of the diesel engine required the introduction of a light show in the form of headlights being shone into every available accommodation.  I have a feeling that this event was of the nature of a teaching event, as the participants appear to be inexperienced in hitching caravans and the usage of both headlight and ignition switches to reduce the impact of the event on other residents. The event lasted 60 minutes.  One can only hope that when this event plays out again at another venue, the players have gained enough experience to understand that the usage of engine and headlights have little benefit when raising stabilisers and jockey wheels (and what ever else took 60 minutes to complete).

Following the last event, we were feeling a little "hot" and decided that retiring to the showers would be the best use of time.   I believe Kerrie spent quite some time enjoying the hot water, whilst I divested myself of the fourteen days of facial hair growth that was starting to generate a degree of irritation.

In comparison to the previous events, the remainder of the day proved to be relatively quite.  The small matter of navigational embarrassment whilst attempting to locate Luna Park was quickly resolved by referring to a GPS.

 

 Other points of interest were also located with no difficulty if one discounts the interesting method of the motor vehicle usage the people of Melbourne seem to have taken on over the last ten years. Driving in Melbourne is not something that can safely be taken on without prior reference to both a calendar and a clock.  Most road directions, including speed and direction restrictions seem to be closely related to the movement of the sun and the moon.  I have a theory that the Victorian RTA is actually a front for a primitive Central American religion who practice the ritual sacrifice of interstate tourists.

This afternoon was taken up with registering the girls into the competition.  On completion it was discovered that counter to the RTA's reliance on actuate timing the competition organisers places great store on the complete absence of timings, including even a start time to tomorrows events.  On enquiry some estimates of a start time were generated (maybe by the examination of a sheep's liver?).

Tim and I will be accompanying the girls to the competition (sheep's liver and orrery in hand) to cheer them on and ensure the RTA is not lying in wait.

We've decided to delay our departure from Melbourne for 24 hours to further study the interesting contrasts of reliance and lack of reliance on celestial motions and to allow the children to experience the unique methods of personal transport utilised in this fair (rainy, windy, sunny, cold, warm) city.

Warning:  The accuracy of the above account must not be relied upon.  The writer is suffering from some degree of sleep deprivation and may be indeed hallucinating.

Day 14 - Ballarat to Melbourne

Dropped into sovereign hill again this morning.  A chance to visit those displays we missed.  Then off to a caravan park in Coburg in Melbourne. 

It's the caravan parks that really allow me to appreciate free camps. I suppose I'm really missing the open spaces and lack of people of a bush site as well.  I suppose you can't complain about a caravan park in inner Melbourne, what else would you expect.  We will be here till Monday. We will just have make sure we spend as much time away as possible.  Should not be hard. Melbourne does not lack in places to spend time. 

Tomorrow is registration for the comp and getting the costumes ironed and sorted, then some time for sight seeing. 

Day 13 - Ballarat - Sovereign Hill

Day 12 - Mt Gambier to Smythesdale near Ballarat

After a final visit to Grandpa, we drove towards Ballarat through lots of pine plantations and past the Grampians. We are going to have to come and send more time here.

We're spending tonight at a free (donation) camp about 13 km from Ballarat. Got to love these spots. 

Day 11 - Mt Gambier

I'll leave the story of our visit to Gradpa Mt Gamber to Kerrie and the kids. It was quite emotional for all of them. Grandpa spent a lot of time with the kids talking about a lot of things. 

Whilst in mt Gamber we went to a video presentation at the town hall about the volcanos and geology in the area.  I think you could spend a lot of time in the area looking at the different geology.