Melbourne vol 2

I had a good feeling when I left Queenscliff on Thursday and headed to Melbourne to see my friend Martin. Firstly because just to see somebody from back home, secondly to have a good time out in the city, thirdly to meet some new people and last but not least, get out of the daily work routine for more than just a day or two. To start with I had a couple of hours to spend before heading to where we all stayed and this time I just wondered around the Docklands area, took the City Circle Tram for the whole circle to look around and just enjoyed the day. The place we stayed at was in Ferntree Gully, a suburb about 1 hour away from the CBD with the train. As I arrived I was expecting to see Martin and the hosts but instead I was faced with a bit of a suprise. It turned out we had a fair bunch of people there – Kaja and David, our hosts, Martin and his relative Janely and the latter friend Maarja. What else to do than to get to know each other and head out to the city for some drinks. The one thing that really turned me into a madman was the public transport system in Melbourne. On our way back we aimed to catch a midnight train home and as we were already running down the stairs onto the platform the train took off. A minute later an announcement was made that no more trains are going towards our required destination that night! Now, it is Melbourne, a metropolis of several million people, it’s summertime when you have a fair amount of tourists visiting and on a Thursday night the public transport seizes to work in midnight!! That’s just STUPID! Well, the bright side was we still had a chance for a taxi which eventually costed us 75aud in total!

True! :)

Docklands, CBD behind

What better way to get over the frustrating encounter with the expencive taxis than to head out to the Yarra Valley wine region and taste some goodies the next day! First stop Yering Station, then Punt Road Wines and finally Chandon! Each and every one of them a pearl of their own. An interesting discovery was Punt Road where they beside wine also make cider, a very good cider! And as I found out, also a sparkling wine out of pears using the champagne method! Now that was a very interesting and fine drink!! Couldn’t leave the place without buying one! J Chandon is the wellknown maker of sparklings and these were immaculate! That night I finally saw an opossum, a creature looking like nothing else than an opossum. He (or maybe she) seemed to be very keen on having a snack from the table, so we decided to be polite and hand him (or her) a Mesikäpp bonbon. And we named him (or her) Possu.

@ Chandon

Margus & Martin @ Yering Station

Saturday was a good day out in the city with David showing us around and taking us all to a T20 cricket game between two Melbourne teams on the MCG (read: Melbourne Cricket Grounds), also known among the locals as the Church! T20 is a new, short version of cricket that only lasts for one evening instead of a test match that goes for 5 days. It was created to get more people attracted to cricket and make it more spectacular. While test matches are between nations then a T20 match is between city clubs. There is also a third type of cricket in Australia where states compete against each other. After the cricket match was halted due to weather (read: rain) and eventually terminated we headed out the highest lounge/bar/restaurant in Melbourne. Earlier we had a chat about the highest pub in the world, Püssirohu Kelder in Tartu and I guess David wanted to match that with something of his own! J It was something like Vertigo – a very chic, elegant place up on the 55th floor of a highrise. And indeed it had a high ceiling! Fortunately it was no match to Püssirohu Kelder, because by far it was not a pub! J The toilet was a sight of its own. The urinal behind a window from floor to ceiling, facing the CBD and the MCG in their full glory at nighttime. Final stop – a brewery. James Squire brewery is something similar to our Beerhouse. But there’s nothing similar at all except the fact they make their beer on site. And it was good! Managed to get a free taste of some ales and stouts, quite liked them, especially as they were really fresh!

@ the MCG

No comments! :)

Sunday began with the aim to visit the Queen Victoria Market! Open daily usually from 6am till 4pm, except on Monday and Wednesday when its closed. Well we made it, just barely! J Got myself some bits and pieces for almost no money at all (read: considering the costs in AUS). We also had a nice walk to the Melbourne Park where 2 weeks later the Australian Open Grand Slam was about to start. To finish the day we headed to St.Kilda beach and got there in time to watch the sunset. It felt kind of good to see the sun set into the sea as most of the time here you cannot really witness that.

The meeting point

Monday morning at 11.50am I opened the door to the Medibank office to have the x-ray and medical examination done for the second year visa. The reason I need the second year visa is because of the upcoming work in the Seppeltsfield winery. To cut the long story short, the visa application and medical checks costed me about 600aud, but it only took 4 days to receive my visa grant! Super fast considering some people wait for theirs for months. Later on I met up with Martin ad Janely and headed to the Eureka Tower for a look over the city. Eureka Tower is a just under 300m tower on South Bank in Melbourne opened in 2006. When completed, it was the world’s tallest residential skyrise, now on the 6th place, it also is currently the building with the most floors available for residential occupancy in the world. It has 556 appartements with the highest one of them at 273m above sealevel. The sight over the city was magnificent!

The Eureka Tower

Looking over the Albert Park (F1 season starting just there in March)

MCG & Melbourne Park

Melbourne CBD

It sure was  a good 5 days in the Melbourne, this time with great people and loads of good memories! However, I was not done with that city yet because of Australian Open. I made up my mind to come back and finally see Kaia Kanepi’s play live!