Saturday 11 November
Dalyston - Melbourne
A BIG trek ahead of us today getting in to Melbourne. With that in mind , we were up at 730am. I had a shower in the van while Paul sorted the breakfast things. We ate, packed up a backpack with everything we would need for the day and we jumped in the car at 845am. We didn’t get out of the car park though, as Paul had the wrong train cards in his walker and we had to go back and search for the Victorian ones. Once they were found, we resumed our journey.
We drove for just under and hour to Cardinia Road station, the second last stop on the Packenham line. We found parking easily within the new shopping precinct and were on the train at 958am. From here it was another hour before we would reach Melbourne city.
We sat back to watch the suburbs rush by. At each new station, more people boarded and the train slowly filled. We were glad we were on early and able to take a seat.
At 11am we heard the last post being played as we pulled into a station, but nothing happened on the train which I thought was unusual. We exited the train at Melbourne Central, found a loo for a quick stop and then made our way above ground into the beautiful blue of the day.
We walked down Elizabeth Street until we reached Flinders Station, where we waited on platform 7 for a train to Spotswood. We had a short wait, so spent it pacing the track. Once on the train, we made our way through the inner workings of Melbourne. At one stop, the platform was lined with men and women dressed in their finery, ready for another day at the races. There were fascinators, heels and fancy jackets everywhere. Melbourians certainly embrace Melbourne Spring Carnival racing.
We arrived at the Spotswood station 20min later and had only a short walk before arriving at Two Birds Brewing. As the name suggests, 2 women run this one. We were expected and as such, Paul was given a tasting paddle and began his reviewing.
He spoke to Sarah, who took us through the brewery and then Paul had some further beers while we ate lunch, tacos and chilli poppers.
As we went to leave, Paul was given a gift pack of 6 beers, great, but how were we to get them in to the basketball later?
We returned to the train and backtracked to Flinders, before jumping onto another train to make the journey to Richmond station. From there, we had to leg it a couple ok k’s through the Richmond streets, littered with Tigers hype, after their grand final win.
We eventually made it to Uitgang, a bar set up to showcase Exit Brewing. We met David, the owner of the bar, who set Paul up with beers to try as they chatted about the place, the beers and life in general.
We stayed until 345pm, but then needed to make a move, as we needed to be at the basketball for 5pm, we had a 40min Walk ahead of us and we needed to stop for dinner. Thankfully Bridge Road was littered with eateries and we were able to find pho n roll, a very yummy Vietnamese restaurant.
After indulging in rolls, salad and crispy chicken, we continued our walk, making it to Hisense Arena just before 5. We found some ladies manning the corporate ticket office and approached them about our backpack, now containing 8 bottles of beer. We were actually after a cloak room, but they said there wasn’t one but they were happy to mind our bag, phew.
As we rounded the arena we could see that there was far more fan participation events going on and a decent crowd was filtering in. We joined a line, filed past bag check, security shake down and then through the turnstiles, not once was I questioned about my camera.
We made our way to our seats, happy to see a reasonable crowd in attendance. I was also pleased to see plenty going on inside for fans. We settled in to watch the game. Sydney did well to keep up with Melbourne for the first half, but they disappeared for the second. They will be better when Jerome Randall arrives to take up his spot.
Watching Melbourne was a little weird. Casey Prather in black is just odd and I was looking around the court for other Wildcats players who were missing in action.
In the end Melbourne walked away winners, 108 - 90, but far from every convincing.
We left the arena as soon as the game finished, eager to collect our bag and free ice cream before walking to the train for the 743pm train heading back to Cardinia.
It was still quite light, as we travelled for the hour and by the time we arrived it was dark. We swapped our mode of transport, returning to the car and making the 75km journey home.
We finally arrived at 9.40pm, 2 hours after leaving Melbourne. There were plenty of young revellers using the bbq and making plenty of noise. We went to bed, but were still wound up, so we read, trying to block out the music and bad singing. Thankfully when we were ready to turn out the lights, the backpackers were smart enough to switch off and head to their tents and we were left in peace.
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