Day 17: Thursday, February 21, 2002
Grampians to Melbourne

Breakfast at Mountain Grand (first course)

After another hearty breakfast at our hotel (Mountain Grand) in the Grampians, we spent the morning driving from Halls Gap to Melbourne. Normally it's about 2.5 to 3 hours, but we took a slow route. We had laundry to do and we figured it would be easier to do it in a small town than in Melbourne, so when we got to Ararat, the first main-ish town along the way, we stopped and asked around for a laundromat. We found one and did a couple of loads. The place was empty and there didn't seem to be a change machine, but there was a door that said "Please enter." So Walendo entered, not knowing what to expect, and there was a room full of women chatting away, playing loud music as they ironed. It startled Walendo. They were quite happy to make change, though, so all was well.

After laundry, we stopped at an Internet Cafe in the town. This one had a high speed link and it was very clean and well set up. We checked to see if the travel agent had booked the Melbourne hotel for Thursday so we'd know if we had pre-paid. She had, which was good. (Or so we thought, but that comes later.) Having taken care of all our business, we continued on.

The landscape was pretty flat, mostly cattle grazing country. It looked a bit like the California central valley late in summer when everything is yellow from lack of rain. We stopped in one town so Walendo could get a bite to eat. In the short amount of time it took for me to walk down the one street I managed to buy another wooden bowl. I saw a tiny crafts shop and saw some lovely bowls, and they were only AU$25 so I couldn't resist. I asked the shopkeeper if they were made locally and she said they were made by the husband of the woman who had just been in the shop, which had made her very happy. So that was nice.

Emu crossing

As we drove along, we were amused by some of the signs that different towns put up to advertise themselves. One said "The last town on the highway before Melbourne." The much bigger town of Ballarat (a touristy gold town) was still to come, but you had to get off the highway to get to it, so technically this was correct. We expected to see one saying "We're a town." We skipped Ballarat since it seemed like a manufactured experience (based on what we'd read in the guide books) and we preferred to see more of Melbourne.

While we drove, we listened to the tape that Walendo had bought teaching you how to play the didjeridoo. We tried to blow through our lips the way they say and mostly succeeded in cracking ourselves up. At one point, he was explaining how you can change your mouth shape to make different sounds and he "spoke" the sounds you should make for a little rhythm, indicating where you should breath. One of these went: "hee hee, ha ha, ho ho, breath." Shortly after that, I did something that annoyed Walendo, so he called me a "hee hee ha ha ho ho breath," which cracked me up. This was to become a way of teasing each other through the rest of the trip.

Eventually we picked up the freeway, where the speed limit was actually 110/hr, which is reasonable. No construction either, so the road in was pretty smooth. We listened to the local radio and all the news stories were about scandals and outrage about public officials. We pieced together the facts of one story that must have been going on for a while, since they didn't explain much about it. Some high politician (I think the governor general) was asked a question about a sexual harrassment case between a clergyman and a 14-year-old girl and apparently he said something that conveyed that the girl must have seduced him. He later said he didn't understand the question. People were calling for the prime minister to "recommend to the queen" that he be "sacked" as they called it, but he was resisting. Later it came out that there had been several similar sexual harrassment accusations against this clergyman at the time when the governor had been in another position that had jurisdiction and he'd never investigated. So people saw him as soft on sexual crimes. Of course the call to boot him was led by the opposition party, and in all the quotes and interviews no one ever gave any explanation about what he had done, just a bunch of outrage. It took about 20 minutes of listening to figure out any facts. I guess news is similar here.

Our room at the Carlton Crest Hotel

When we got to Melbourne, we had to find our way to the hotel. The Hertz woman in Sydney had given us a map book of Melbourne, which allowed us to figure out which freeway to come in through. It was just a few blocks from the exit and we found the hotel without incident, which was nice. We were staying at the Carlton Crest, which turns out to be quite a nice hotel, the type I often stay at while on business. And yet we were paying only AU$117 (US$58). Pretty impressive. While we were unloading everything out of the car (and we'd accumulated a bunch of junk), the man tending to the cars told us we might be able to have Hertz come pick up the car rather than driving out to the airport to drop it off. We asked and indeed they provided this service, what a deal! So instead of having to drive out the airport that afternoon and taking a cab back, we had the afternoon to explore Melbourne. How nice.

Trolley on St. Kilda Street near Carlton Crest Hotel

The room was quite nice and large enough for all our crap. After settling in, we got ready to head into Melbourne. The hotel is one block away from St. Kilda Street, a main road that feeds into center city. A bunch of trams run along it, so we got on one and figured out how to buy a ticket for the ride. They have ticket machines on board for single tickets and two-hour tickets, so we just got the one. We crossed over the river and into the city center, which is a rectangular area about 8 blocks by 6 blocks. After we crossed over the Yarra River and got off the tram on Swanston St, which runs up the middle. It was bustling with people and stores.

Downtown Melbourne

We walked our way up, checking out the scene. I was looking to buy the next two books in the trilogy I've been reading (The Guilded Cage by Marshall Browne, an Australian writer — it takes place in Melbourne in 1888, which is appropriate), so we stopped in a bunch of book stores along the way. I found the third book, but not the second, so we kept looking. We also stopped in some technical book stores to see if they had our book, but this time we never saw it. Oh well.

There were a bunch of stores selling fancy watches and jewelry, and Walendo started to wonder if now was the time to get a Tag Heuer watch, since he's always wanted one and the exchange rate is so good. We came across one store that had the kind he likes and the salesman had him try it on (of course) and did his sales job.

Melbourne's central train station, Flinders Street

After getting GST back, it would come to just under $700, which we figured was a great deal but is also a lot of money for a watch, especially when you're between jobs. Walendo was good and resisted buying it right there, so the guy gave him his card and told him they'd be open tomorrow and Saturday. For the next hour or so, Walendo weighed the idea of buying the watch, trying to justify it to himself. (I asked him how he thought a fancy watch would look with t-shirt and shorts, his usual outfit, and that seemed to give him pause, but of course not so much that he still couldn't come up with reasons to buy it.) Walendo had picked up a flyer that mentioned a watch store in a mall and giving discounts, so we went over there to compare prices. Walendo was all riled up, eager to check out the watches. When we got to the mall, we couldn't find the store, but finally Walendo spotted it — it was a little kiosk selling cheap watches. Sigh. Later we came to an internet cafe, so we logged on and he checked out Tag Heuer watches on the web and found that he could get a similar model for a little over $700, so that took the pressure off — no special reason to get it now. Whew, a close call.

Greek Cafe in Melbourne

We walked through Chinatown, three blocks right in the middle of town, and then later came back there for dinner. Walendo wanted to go to the stalls and get a plate of mysterious stuff, but then I'd have to find something, so we wound up going to a restaurant. Young women dressed in Chinese clothes stand outside the restaurants trying to lure in customers. It's a little uncomfortable. The food was fine, nothing special, but at least Walendo got to eat Chinese. (Though he still had his craving for the cheap Chinese stuff he loves so much.) Then we walked a block or two north to a street full of Greek restaurants. We stopped at one for some tea and I had a chocolate cake. It was only okay, but the tea was good and it was nice to sit at a sidewalk cafe. After wandering around a bit more, we took the tram back down St. Kilda street to our hotel. The stops are numbered (which is nice) and the conceirge had told us which stop to get off, so we knew where to get off. We watched a little TV and then konked out. Tomorrow, we shop till we drop!

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