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Melbourne 2016 |
What's covered?
We chose to come back to Melbourne as a start point for our trip along the Great Ocean Road.
25 September
The pickup from the Port Douglas hotel was scheduled for 10.15 and that proved to be a bit tight for our 13.00 flight after other hotel pickups. Also Qantas had told us the 30 kilo limit would apply to all flights and should include Virgin but Virgin's staff advised us their limit was 23 kilos as they could not attach the Qantas Sydney to Christchurch flight! We had to remove stuff from our hold cases and put it in hand luggage. It did not seem to matter that the hand luggage was then grossly overweight and the plane would be carrying the same total weight!
We got a taxi from the airport to the Crown Metropole (A$75). The hotel room was good but unbelievably their restaurant does not open on a Sunday or a Monday, our nights! There is a complex of three Crown hotels with a shopping mall and casino. It is a huge site so we had to go in search of a restaurant in the mall. Because of school holidays and the Brownlow Medals, the place was heaving and we struggled to find anywhere. One decent looking restaurant were quite snooty and offered a table in 45 minutes but then started to book it for an hour later. We declined and went to somewhere basic but decent and they had a table.
26 September
We had a light breakfast in the shopping mall and then followed the Riverside Walk and went on to the Royal Botanical Gardens. They were lovely and the sun was shining, albeit the weather was a bit on the cold side. Eventually we walked back to the city centre, probably a total of five or six miles of walking.
We had a very nice sandwich in an organic cafe before deciding our legs were too tired for any shopping. We returned to the hotel using the free tram service that stopped just short of the hotel.
Dinner started out by looking as if it was going to be the same problem as last night but we found Bistro Guillaume where the attitude was different. They gave us a table by the window alongside the river and we enjoyed a good meal.
Photos
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Botanical Gardens
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