Melbourne Odyssey Day 2 Melbourne rushing

By the numbers

15.22 kms

20,140 steps

1 museum

 

I woke up after around 5 hours of sleep and didn’t really want to go that far until I had coffee. I didn’t think my room would have a coffee service as I had to go down the road. I knew my tour was around 11am, so I got myself some breakfast and sit down to write up my blog from the night before. As I was typing and listening to the news as I have a TV in my room, I decided to get the ticket up on my phone so that I could see where I was meant to meet. It was just after 9am, and then I seen the time was 10am. I knew then I really had to get running.

 

Quickly setting myself up to leave, I looked in a cupboard beside the bed and found a jug with instant coffee. I never needed to leave the building for coffee apart from food. Shoes were put on, my day bag unzipped with water placed inside and my Myki travel card in my pocket as I bolted out the door. I happen to be on the 2^nd floor with the worlds slowest elevator. I was up the road next to the train station waiting a minute for a tram that arrived on time. I could have either had a 40 min walk or a 20 min tram ride to my destination and I chose a tram. Part way to the destinmation the tram had issues with a door not closing and the tram guys had to check it out. After several minutes the door did close. I was around 3 stops away from Carlton gardens and had to meet at the museum foyer. I got off and tried to powerwalk towards the museum with the Royal Exhibition building in front of me. As I cleared the side of the building, I seen the Melbourne museum and was going to aim for the entry on the other side of the building, but luckily I asked a random official guy where the entrance was. He pointed me in the right direction as I was going to run around the back of the building, where there was no entrance. That would have annoyed me as I was going to be late. I jogged to the museum entrance and found the meeting place with around 6 mins left.

 

I had to put on a vest and a lanyard as I was part of the tour group to explore the Royal Exhibition building, built during the 1880, where it was delivered on time and under budget. Cant say that much at all anymore if every for the government. The first Parliament was opened in the building, the exhibition building still serves its roll by holding exhibitions like Fashion week that was being setup while I was there so we couldn’t wander off. As we were walking to the building one of the ladies started talking to me about some fish that was part of the Melbourne Olympics as she thought I was one of the tour guides, and I was being polite by answering. I told her I was a tourist just like her and laughed. The weather was starting to move in as it was trying to rain. We were escorted into the building as we couldn’t stay on the ground floor due to the workers doing their work on the inside, so we ended up on the Mezzanine, which is the next floor up. There are art works with depictions like of Australian federation and Goddesses. Off hand I cant remember the names of them apart from there are some that are for the seasons, and one for the scales of justice. Serifs I think they were called, something like that. We ended up in the basement, which will be sometime soon the new meeting place for the dome tour, which is what I am on. On the way down there was a hole in the ground that was covered up by the workers, which was actually a shaft for a lift. One lady explained that there are photos in an album that the museum has of the exhibition in 1880, it is leather bound with gold leaf. It is amazing who ends up on these tours.

 

The next step is for us to head up to the dome, which is 120 steps. I follow the people up them and one or two had to stop part way up as they were puffed and I smiled as I passed them. At the top you would get good views of the city, but the rain had decided to set in and drizzle. Everyone were able to take photos of the views of Melbourne since it was the highest point in the city when built. Where the museum now is located that was part of the temporary covered area when the exhibition was on. The Royal Exhibition building has had many uses during its life and that included for the influenza outbreak and even a meeting place for immigrants coming to the country. Once we ended up back at the ground floor the tour was over. I wanted to head to the museum for a coffee and to see dinosaurs as there was a thing about a Triceratops.

 

Gaining entry to the museum meant I could also enjoy a coffee in the museum, I got a snack to eat and a coffee, which I was happy to have as I got to relax. I was happy that the weather wasn’t extremely hot and nothing like it was at home. The museum was interesting as I headed to the dinosaur exhibit first as there were some dinosaurs there including several that I had not seen before like one plant eater with spikes that could have been for defence or for sunning themselves. The Triceratops was an 85% complete skeleton. The Triceratops actually had the name of Horridus and was found in Hell Creek in the US. Somehow Melbourne had the dinosaur. There were a few other finds in the same area as well. I went looking for Phar Lap as Melbourne had the taxidermy hide, National museum has the heart and Wellington has the skeleton. They do have a custom made saddle for the famous horse including the shoes. They did have Bon Scotts jacket on display, but it wasn’t there as there were other things like what was worn at a festival. The history of Melbourne was on display included the original Cobb and Co stage coach that was used in the area, and there was mention the city growing and becoming busy once gold had been found, which meant the facilities like bridges and transport needed to be constructed to keep up, and the government were a little behind on the infrastructure planning in the early days. I could see that it was still raining outside and I eventually ended up out there after my tour of the museum gift shop. Luckily I had my brolly on me.

I was walking back towards where I was staying, but I did look at the transport options and they were something like a 15 min wait. In the rain that is, so I kept on walking. I headed to the Old Melbourne Goal and once I was outside RMIT university, which is at the back of the goal, where Ned Kelly was hanged I checked the options again and it was still a little bit of a wait. I was damp, but happy. I found another bookstore in the Royal Historical society, which I made sure I was there before closing. Had a chat about cursive writing, and was off to Southern Cross station, where I picked up my tickets for the Airshow transport. That is something I will see on the Friday. I dropped off my brolly in my room as I grabbed my raincoat and that meant it had stopped raining, which was weird luck. I checked out several IGA stores for hot food and they all had nothing, so I guess I need the bigger stores instead of the small ones. Just trying to save money on food for dinner as I don’t have the facilities to make food hot. One street I was looking for was the Dame Edna Place. I was expecting more as I had looked it up online, but there wasn’t a picture other than broken lights around Dame Edna street sign. Nearby was a shop I wanted to visit and once I left, I thought about walking the 10 mins towards Flinders street where the nearby ACDC Lane was. I decided against it as I needed food instead and a rest.

 

Walking along Little Collins street, I ended up in a pub. I actually thought it was Monday as it was steak night, but I had the wrong day. Steak was $20 on a Monday, so it was the next best thing and I ended up with a Chicken Parmy with salad and chips. I think I got into the sports bar before it became too busy. I think I was the only one reading a book, but the food did come out pretty quickly. I was satisfied by the food I had that I was able to head back to the room for a nice rest and an early night since I had a pretty late night the day before. Lets not have issues with flights again as that was not very fun at all even if I could handle it.

Melbourne Odyssey: Day 1 Delayed, Delayed to Melbourne

By the numbers

Bag 10 kg

1 plane

1 taxi

This would be my second go at trying to fly out of the Gold Coast after the false start earlier in the day. I made it to the airport with heaps of time and I knew the flight might be delayed by half an hour as that was all good. My bag was 10 kilos and I waved it off as it went through to the place from the back of beyond that could be a teleporter to meet me on the other side.

 

I had rebooked myself on one of the last flights of the day out of the Gold Coast and I was getting tired after being up nearly all day. My day had started around 530am, so I was starting to fun on fumes. At first thought the flight was delayed by half hour and I hoped it wouldn’t extend any further or else there might be the threat of being canned. The airport was cold enough that my bladder wanted to eject the contents frequently. Only to stop once I entered a warm departure line. Plus no evacuation until I ended up in Melbourne.

8pm Was supposed to be the boarding time for 830 departure

830pm a text to say the gate was open with it closing around 845

9pm hit and we still had no sight of the plane, but the gate had opened up without any staff. People were lining up, so I decided to as well. It was warmer than the terminal and my bladder settled.

930pm Staff wandering around and not enough info as more people wander into the gate area

945pm We were told that it would be another half hour as the pilot and crew from another plane were playing plane musical chairs by walking over to our one

1021pm Everyone starting to get ready to board

1030pm We wandered to the tarmac and were in a human conga line waiting outside as people scan their boarding passes while hoping the pilot closes his window while in the air.

1041 we were now sitting down and happy to have a seat on a full plane. I had a window seat where the original booking had an aisle. I read a books the entire flight.

I was happy to be on the plane and leaving the state. After a day of delays and this delay was part of the impact from the morning issues with the Gold Coast airport. Luckily I never had anything planned apart for a wander.

120am We finally land in Melbourne and I found it was my friend the long walk from one side of the terminal all the way to the front where my bag was actually waiting for me instead of the other way round. Turns out there was no more Skybus due to their run finishing at 1am. I decided to catch a taxi into the city and I found the taxi rank with no problems.

The taxi ride was actually pretty quick and the guy never said a word the entire way. He drove fast though and the metre went just as fast. I was dropped off just around the corner from where I was staying since it wasn’t that long of a walk. After I paid the bill, I got a shock I had been locked in the car. I think that was due to runners not paying. Once I was allowed out I bid the guy a good night sand headed to the hotel. Once inside the night manager had a look at my account to find there was an issue. I soon found my booking had been cancelled as my card was invalid for some reason even though I had rang to let them know. I was told to take a seat and wait a bit for him to reinstate my booking. It only took several minutes and I was relieved once I filled out paperwork for my room including getting my ID back as they needed a copy. Not something I wanted to lose.

0237am, I was in my room and heading to bed with an alarm set for 5 hours time. The room was quieter than the hostel around the corner. I was worried that they were doing roadworks out the front of the building on Spencer Street.

Melbourne Odessey: Day 1.5 Airport unplugged

 

The day arrived for my week away in Melbourne, where I will have an afternoon wandering the streets of Melbourne. This time around I was pretty slack in my packing as I left it to basically two days before I left on the adventure. I was checking things within the hours before leaving for the airport. Making sure I had everything that I needed as the time ticked ever closer and this time I didnt fill myself up with multiple coffee as I made friends with the toilets the last time I did that.

 

A neighbour picked me up to drop me off at the doors. There was nothing ominous when we pulled up as it looked like a busy airport from the outside. I thought it was strange some lady as I walked past was looking in the windows, when I thought she couldn’t find the doors that was a metre away. I set foot into the building and soon realised something was going on as there were larger crowds than usual and no flight details on the boards. I asked one of the workers, who told me there was an IT outage with the entire airport. I looked at Twitter to see answers and there was nothing and then Facebook, where it told me they operate 9 – 5. They did have an update to say they were down from a power outage and IT issues. Were the guys from the IT Crowd playing games like unplugging things, or turning computers on or off? Did they type in a word to crash the search engine?

 

While people watching and chatting to the occasional Jetstar lady including the one on her first day of work, which I wished her well. The airlines were manually sorting out the bags for the flights and that meant every flight leaving. A couple were being cancelled. I received some messages from the media as I had posted a picture on the GC airport page, and they asked for video and photos, which I obliged to do. They were Sunrise and Channel 6, whoever they were. The entire scenario reminded me of the panic buying during the pandemic and when the checkout lines were long when we had the flooding this time last year in the Tween when the NBN outage meant there was no eftpos for several days. As I told a Jestar lady, I was happy to stand and people watch, and everyone from my corner of the world seemed calm. There were sporadic people going through security, and if you had no bag you could go through to boarding. They were announcing flights while I was there and I even heard the airport manager tell everyone about the delays and that they were working in the background to sort out the issue. It made me think of someone out there spinning around on their chairs as the computers are down.

 

I required a loo and the toilet wasn’t experiencing delays, which was lucky. Back to my standing spot, I spotted a camera, so I took a photo of the guy. I slowly crept up to where they were manually checking in the people and for the bag drops. I was starting to wonder if my flight was going to be canned, and I grabbed another Jestar lady to ask if I should line up. One step away and the announcement came over that the flight was cancelled. The nice lady told me to now get onto the site to manage my booking before others grab the website with their rush. Within minutes, I was on my way out the front door, hoping the website would work. I found I had two options for the Monday and I selected the last flight out for Monday. I kinda accidentally selected it, but it gave me a seat to Melbourne and I was happy for that. I got in before many other people overwhelmed the system, taking away my flight to the city of Melbourne. Today technology in my hand got ahead of people power and on the advice of a Jetstar lady. They all need a stiff drink tonight.

 

After the rescheduled flight, I got emails and messages letting me know about the cancelled flight. Since the flight was late at night and getting me to Melbourne just before Midnight, I might turn into a pumpkin while on the bus to the city. I did let my accommodation know, I will be late and they were likely happy with that. The flight change didn’t cost me anything so there is that and I will try again with my flight later. Hopefully Kaos doesn’t interrupt, unless its agent 86 from Control. Then I will be worried as things just happen that is out of anyones control. I accepted that and I even got things done after returning home. There was more washing and a haircut involved so it is all good in the crazy world where anything can happen and then it happens.