Follow the Bouncing Ball Pt. 2

Jan. 17

Second day at the Aussie Open.  We took the free tram down to Flinders St., bought our $.70 bottle of water at Coles and headed for the free tram to the tennis......which were so crowded we decided just to do the 20 minute walk.  When we got in we stood in line to upgrade our ground passes to the Margaret Court Arena to watch our 18 year old phenom, Denis Shapovalov play France’s Jo Wilfred Tsonga.  It was a great match going the full 5 sets with Denis showing his youth at the end of the match as Tsonga showed his veteran skills to come back and finish it off.  During the match a camera man came up and filmed us for the stadium screen and at the end of the match a French fan came and asked for a picture with us.  We have got into some great conversations with people on this trip and the people of Australia are very friendly.  After the match went for a drink on the grounds and had an interesting conversation with two young guys; one was a teacher and the other was a Victoria state policeman.

After the tennis we headed off for the Melbourne Night Market which is only a block from our place.  This is at the site of the Queen Victoria market which happens every day except Wednesday.  On that day they have the night market.  The market has hundreds of food and drink vendors along with merchants and their quirky wares.  There is music and street performers and thousands of happy people and...sangria.  Everyone should experience Melbourne’s night market at least once!

Follow the Bouncing Ball

Jan. 16 - 17

These two days were mostly spent at the Australian Open at Melbourne Park.  On the first day there were two Canadians playing back to back on Show Court 2.  We took the tram down to Flinders Station and then did a twenty minute walk to the park where we greeted with a massive crowd of people flooding the entrance gates.  We eventually got in and made our way to the Court where we sat in 30 degree heat and watched Raonic lose in four to Lucas Lacko and Genie Bouchard win her match in 2 sets.  In all went spent 4 hours there.  

We then left the park and went off to move to our new place on Elizabeth St. And then back to the tennis.

We watched a match with Ales De Minaur and another one with Dominic Thiem.  We then took the crowded free tram back to Flinders then did a 20 minute back to our place getting back at around 11:00.  A very full day.

The Long and Wining Road

Jan, 15, 2018

Today was our wine tour with Australian Wine Tours.  We were picked up at St. Paul’s cathedral which is on Flinders Street right across from Federation Square.  Our guide was John (not Ron) Murphy and we traveled with 19 other winos to the Yarra Valley.  The Yarra Valley is much like the Okanagan known for its wine growing but it has been established since the mid 1800s.  It took about an hour to get to our first winery, Punt Road.  Here we were given some wine tasting instruction and were treated to some Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cab Franc, and a Shiraz.  Then we were off to Balgownie Estate for our next tasting.  We had a Cuvée Brut (sparkling Chardonnay), Merlot, Shiraz and then a sparkling Shiraz which was quite good.  We had a great lunch here, as well.  Mary had Flathead(fish and chips) and I had an excellent lamb shank ( when in Australia, right?). Our next stop was at Yering Estate, a much smaller, laid back, family run winery.  All the wine was good and they also make a tasty cider with Pink Lady apples.  Our final stop was at Chandon, a winery that specializes in champagne.  Beautiful building and surroundings and an aging cellar with 70000 bottles.  In total we had 30 tastings!  We were dropped off back our staring point, walked back to our place and crashed....at least I did.  

St. Kilda

Jan. 14, 2018
Today we took a tram to St. Kilda, another part of Melbourne.  We went for the Sunday market and for the penguins, fairy penguins, that is.  There’s a colony of about 1300 that live in the rocks at the St. Kilda pier.  I guess some had made their way from Phillip Island and they’re now a thriving little colony. The chicks stay in their rock nests while the adults forage during the day and then return at night to feed the chicks.  We saw some chicks but only one adult came by the time we had to catch our tram back.  St. Kilda is a nice little beach community with lots of restaurants, coffee shops and on Acland Ave. They have a lot of cake shops.  We stopped for a glass of $5 wine and a piece of caramel fudge cake at a little place called 95.  We got talking to the owner and a buddy of his and Mary had a bit of a heated talk about Trump.  Buddy thinks he’s a genius and, needless to say, doesn’t quite agree with his assessment.  All a nd all, we spent about 9 hours just kicking around St. Kilda, including a stop at the botanical gardens, a beach walk, shell hunting, a good dinner at the Little Blue restaurant, (at the end of the pier) and a few glasses of wine , of course.  Speaking of wine we do a wine tour to the Yarra Valley tomorrow.

Rainy Day

Today was a slower day, partly the weather and partly the energy level....just not there today.  We went out exploring today in an attempt to find Rose St. Artists Market.  We hiked from our area into Fitzroy where we came upon Carlton Gardens, a park which houses the Royal Exhibition Building and the Melbourne Museum.  Melbourne has a lot of green areas.  We got to the market and then found the Fitzroy Mills Market where there was an 11 year blues “man”, Ned Moran.  You need to check out his Facebook page.  From there we went to another area, Collingwood, where we had a good lunch at Alimentari, a very busy restaurant.  The skies opened and the winds howled so we bussed back and had an early night.  Melbourne is known for its graffiti art so I’ll include some we passed in our travels.

Walking in Melbourne

First full day in Melbourne.  Walked to Melbourne Park to watch some qualifying tennis matches.  As we walked along we came upon Melbourne’s oldest church, St. Francis.  It’s a beautiful church tucked in amongs all the skyscrapers.

We continued walking to the tennis taking an unplanned circuitous route.  We eventually got there and strolled around the park getting our bearings.  We were able to see one of our Canadians, Frank Dancevic Canada’s Davis Cup captain, play through most of two sets before the rain suspended play.  We decided to go see Margaret Court Arena which is a covered stadium and we lucked into a practice match between Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem.  We got seats in the 4fh row.  We were feeling quite fortunate.

From there we hiked up into the Richmond area of the city to visit a store called Pookipoiga.  It’s a gift store where everything is ethically produced.  We met Sree and he was telling us the stories behind the products.  Mary gave him a Terrace pin.  

We then walked up to Fitzroy Park.  Melbourne is made up of all these different little communities and each seems to have their own green space. 

.

From there we walked  to our Irish pub, P.J. O’Briens where we finished the day with Happy Hour drinks, food and music.  Then we staggered back to our Citytempo apartment.