The previous episode ended with us saying our goodbyes to Erin’s dad at Bendigo train station, now it’s Wednesday evening and we’re on the way back into Melbourne for another go. It’s been nice having a few quiet days in the country but we’re ready for a bit more hustle and bustle again.

Our hotel for this Melbourne section of the trip, two nights, is right in the middle of the CBD and therefore within easy walking distance of everything in the city centre – perfect! I’m a bit more gung-ho about walking than Erin so the more obvious the case for walking the better! The Mercure is quite nice; nothing particularly special but we’ve got a decent bed, biscuits in the room, WiFi included (if only because of a hotel club thing) and the aforementioned good location.

Wednesday evening is a meetup at a pub out in the suburbs, a bit of a get-together for all Londoners past and present that are in the area. I may not have mentioned this previously so I’ll do so now: there’s a wedding on Friday of two Australians (Nick and Kate) who we knew when they lived in London, and now there’s a whole contingent of us over to attend. Combine that with a bunch of other people who did work-visa stints in London (seemingly quite traditional for Australians with broad horizons) and there’s suddenly quite a lot of us gathering together! While I’d seen a few of them on the stag earlier in the week it was great to catch the rest of them now as well. Much fun was had, inevitably descending into tequila-and-tomato-juice shooting later in the evening; I skipped this because I’m a sensible chap, you see.

The pub served food, and I had a surprisingly good pair (yes, pair – apparently one serving!) of burritos followed by an apple pie. I, umm, took a very good photo. Unfortunately it’s best viewed by rewinding about 5 minutes. Oh well!

Thursday morning we were up and about reasonably early: time to fit in some sightseeing. It’s kinda hard to do touristy stuff as a couple in a place that one half knows quite well – Erin lived in Melbourne for years – because I guess you never really see the tourism side of a place when you live there; I know I’m the same with Ireland in general. We also did some of the things last time we were in Australia so the most obvious boxes are already ticked. All that being said, though, we’ve managed to come up with a few things to do, and with company! Steph, Reece, Chris and Raam (all friends from London and over for the wedding) are coming along for a spot of peering under the covers of Melbourne as well. You may see them pictured in some of the below shots, but the group photos we have are on Erin’s camera and we’ve not yet retrieved them.

We met in the morning at the Queen Victoria Markets in the northwest corner of the CBD. It’s quite a large fresh fruit and veg market (with a huge variety of produce) with a side of tourist tat – clothes and knick-knacks, basically.

Priorities: food first. Like most markets, this one also catered to customers’ bellies. I ended up going for a lamb mince gözleme. You might remember I ate a potato-filled one in Istanbul; while that one was good I think this one was better, something excellent happens when you combine lamb and dough.

We went a-wandering through the markets. The produce section was excellent, I saw a whole lot of stuff I’d happily have bought and cooked with. Interestingly it looked like it was generally more expensive than equivalent stuff in London; probably explainable by the generally huge Australian wages, but still. The tat section was, well, exactly what you’d expect I guess. Not much for me there but still interesting enough to wander through for a while.
We hung around until midday in the hope of winning a free raffle draw, but apparently we suck at raffles and failed to take the prize.

From the markets we went to see the house where Steph and Reece rented for a while years ago when they lived in Melbourne; on the way there we had a stroke of luck. We were stopped outside a shop to refill on waters etc when some random radio station were setting up at the icecream parlour next door. We had an inkling that something good was going to happen and we were right: they eventually asked us if we wanted some free icecream! Of course, I’m not sure that any of us really wanted any icecream but it would’ve been rude to refuse, right? Can’t be selfish about these things.
Erin had the licorice, I had some delicious chocolate and hazelnut concoction. Not a bad trade for the picture they got us to pose for.

Next major tourist activity of the day: visit the Eureka tower to look down on the city from the 88th floor. The Eureka tower is a bit tall, formerly the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and still the highest observation deck in that hemisphere. I took some pictures on the walk there, you can see it in some of them; clue: it’s the really big one! I don’t know why there are bees on the front, though, that’s just weird.

We pay our $18 each – expensive, but also what I’d expect from something like this – and ascend in the elevator. The elevator was apparently the fastest one in the southern hemisphere, getting us to the 88th floor 490m from the ground in under 50 seconds. I’m glad it wasn’t like one of the old elevators from where I used to work, we’d have been there all day.
I had mentioned wanting to take the stairs, but knowing that definitely want something that would be allowed. Apparently they do hold an annual race up the stairs, though, and the record is something like 1600 steps in 7m30s. I’m up for that. A constant three stairs per second? Easy peasy.
I took a variety of shots from the top. Unfortunately, apart from one section, it’s all enclosed by glass so picture quality isn’t always the best. We took some inside group shots as well but all on Erin’s camera, I’ll post them later when we retrieve them.

Very impressive views! I love high-rise cityscapes, and also distant ocean shots. Unfortunately separate rather than combined from this viewpoint (CBD is north of the tower, the sea is south) but I can’t really complain!
We decided not to fork out for the “edge experience”, which was going out into a small glass-floored section on the side of the tower. I’ve done the equivalent at the Grand Canyon (the Sky Bridge I think) and it’s definitely a different and fun experience, but they weren’t allowing people to take cameras out and that was just a bit too gimmicky/touristy for me. I was happy enough with what I’d already seen, anyway.

Done with that, our next destination (after a small food break) was to a green area we saw from the top of the tower – the botanic gardens. Very pretty, very peaceful, lots of nice greenery and water bits. And ferns; Steph was very excited about ferns. We spent around two hours in there, wandering. Have some pictures, both of the gardens and some surrounding green areas.

Just outside the gardens were memorials to soldiers of both WW I and WW II.

That was the end of our joint touristy day; we split up, the other guys heading out to the suburbs somewhere, Erin and I heading back into the CBD. Our visit had happily intersected with a Melbourne food festival and there was an Asian cooked-food market set up for the evening – the Noodle Night Market. There were about 50 food stalls going, all with delicious fare at reasonable prices. I again failed to take pictures of what we had but we shared some chicken curry, potato fritters, potato curry dosa, various other bits. Street food rarely disappoints. Unless you’ve literally picked it up from the street, that’s a different thing.

There was a guy in an Elmo costume playing the bagpipes. Because why not?

From there it was a short walk back to our hotel, but we weren’t done yet. Earlier in the day I’d had a quick look to see if there was any decent comedy on and we got insanely lucky: one of my favourite comedians, Wil Anderson, was doing a show tonight! It had been over a year since we’d last seen him so it should be all new material. I picked up a couple of tickets, paying a bit more than we’d usually have to in London but happy with the find.
I walked the couple of kilometres to the venue while Erin took the lazy/easy/sensible option of the tram; we got there at the same time. It was a really nice evening for a walk so I reckon I won that one, although I think Erin with her broken feet (lack of good walking shoes and we’d done quite a lot of walking today) was happy with her choice as well!

The comedy was fantastic, and we got much more of it than we expected. Typically when we do comedy in London it’s too a single comedian for an hour set – no warmups, rarely any intervals, just the headline act doing his thing. They made a full night of it in the comedy club here, though; a decent MC, two warmup acts of about 30 minutes each, then a full hour’s set from Wil Anderson. He was excellent as usual; hopefully he still comes to London from time to time even now that he’s moved to the US to try to get a foothold there.

We walked back to the hotel (nicely downhill all the way). I sensibly decided to exercise restraint (sometimes it happens, believe it or not) and not stop for cake along the way; I did have the hotel biscuit when we got back to the room though, there’s a limit to these things.

Friday morning was the end of this Melbourne segment, it was time to head back out to (a different part of) the countryside to attend the wedding. Luckily we were able to leave most of our baggage in storage in the hotel so only had to lug my backpack along as well as our suits. The wedding is at 4pm so we’re aiming to be out at the accommodation pretty early to get ready and look pretty, that kind of thing. Not me, obviously, some things just come naturally, but (sometimes) I’m willing to accommodate others’ needs!

Prior to meeting up with the friends we were getting a lift from we grabbed breakfast at a café convenient to the meeting point; Erin on form with the food-finding again, the breakfast there definitely hit the spot. Erin had an Eggs Benedict with hash browns and avocado salsa, I had an omelette with bacon, sweet potato and mushroom. My only complaint was I’d have liked more sweet potato in there but that’s all.

Next post: the wedding!