07.07 John's Holiday '07: Melbourne

After much anticipation John arrived in Melbourne for 'John's Holiday '07'!

The first evening was spent visiting a number of bars, the first being Lot 50 at Yarra's Edge, followed by to trip into the city to find some of Melbourne's hidden treasures. Two bars later, which included the Trader Bar, some people were feeling a little worse for wear. Excuses such as jetlag were used!?

John finds on the way home that being behind the ticket machine is actually the worst seat on the tram!

The excitement builds as we head to the Eureka Tower!

Almost there! This is the fastest lift in the southern hemisphere, it takes just 30 seconds to reach the 88th floor!

Joanna & John on the Sky Deck with views towards Docklands.

Nathan & John on the outside terrace of the Sky Deck.

Its the little things that remind you of home. John used to work for a company, amusingly called, Down to Earth!

Nice photos of public art being ruined by passers by! Funnily enough the figure John is having an intimate moment with was sculpted by another John Robinson!!

The Botanical Gardens, with Joanna & John by a big tree. Keep an eye on the comments, as I'm sure that someone may identify it!

Views over the lake & John by a very big asparagus/aloe vera plant. Again, watch the comments for the correct name!!

'Its only a short walk down here' says Joanna! Hmm, that's fine if it wasn't pissing down with rain! Here we are standing outside Melbourne Grammar School for Girls, Wadhurst Branch absolutely drenched! Hence why John isn't so happy!!

Delicious tea and cake on Acland Street in St. Kilda, note the shop name to the right of my head - they were that good!

John & Nathan trying not be sucked into Luna Park!

Just the three of us on St. Kilda pier just before we went looking for penguins. No we didn't find any this time!

Views back to the City with some helicopters looking for an escaped person from Western Australia. Joanna & I were waving but they didn't see us!

John surveys Docklands at twilight.

The moon rising over Docklands.

The flames on Southbank after a bit of a flutter on the Roulette Wheel. Joanna lost $10 & I broke even after placing all my winnings on red, as it hadn't come up for sometime, then the ball landed on 0/green!! I forgot about that one!?!?!

One of us was a little bit luckier than the rest on the 'wheel the night before and managed to come out with a bit more than was spent, so we had breakfast out in Brunswick Street. Cheers John! The only issue was who farted? I think that a certain person looks quite guilty!

John taking a keen interest in the City Circle Loop, although he is sat the wrong way round and there is a voice-over man telling him about the key landmarks as we ride past!

Then all of a sudden the weekend draws to a sudden close and John's escorted back to Perth by Jetstar!

03.05 Lessons in Stalking (Part 2)

They'll be a flurry of post comings over the next few days and we try to bring everyone up to date with whats been happening here and what we've been up to.

As the title suggests we went to the meeting with Melbourne 30's Club last week. It was in this bar called the Trader Bar, where the prices of the drinks fluctuate according to whats being sold! The drinks were very reasonably priced too!

The bar full of city types but no sign of our potential friends. So we sat in a corner so we could see everyone coming in and waited. After some time we recognised some people from the last meeting, but that was all who turned up. We've decided that we won't be attempting anything here (other strategies are being devised!), but we'll still go to the bars they suggest as they seem to be very good!

Fortunately by the time they arrived we had to leave and head out to a gig at the Comedy Festival. This time we saw a guy who spoke about the history of swearing and the differences between UK and Oz. It was very good and it ended up with Joanna shouting the 'C' word at the end! Oh, the potty mouth! The gig was a very intimate affair and was held in another cool place called the Loop Bar.

After the gig we headed to another bar called the Caboose Restaurant and then headed back to the Lounge Room for more drinks. Woke up the next morning with some sore heads for some reason!?

22.04 White Wine Wendy Strikes Again!

Honestly, we really don’t know where the time is going to as we say goodbye to another week. Jo’s worked all week and I’ve done a couple of days. It’s given me a chance to get other some bits and pieces sorted, but not the important ones though!

As many of you know, we had a ‘social evening’ planned on Thursday, this was a meet set up by someone that Jo had seen on ‘GumTree’. After some email contact we had secured the time & place in the city. It was an impromptu club called ‘Melbourne 30s’!

The time had come and we spent a few minutes psyching ourselves up by walking around a music shop opposite the hotel. Once we were ready we headed over the road and entered the bar. We ordered our drinks and sat at the bar, as we tried to decipher who was who. It was a shame that there was no one there to introduce themselves.

After a couple of sips of the ‘ole dutch courage’ we had worked out that a group of ‘dowdy’ and ‘slightly older than we imagined’ people were probably them. We think that first impressions are very important and we weren’t particularly impressed, there weren’t any cool dudes or chicks like ourselves in the eight – yes EIGHT! Anyway, not to be perturbed by this we decided that we’d head off and come back.

After a little walk around the laneways we had a drink at a bar and headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately it hadn’t improved much, if at all! There were still the same numbers of people there, so decided that we’d head back to Docklands.

It wasn’t a wasted evening as we headed to the Lounge Room bar and after a few more drinks, Jo heckling the band and a short stumble home I think it worked out very well!

We received an email from the Melbourne 30s the following morning saying it was a great success and he’s organising another event. We’ve said, surprisingly, that we’ll go and hope that some others might turn up. Just got to get some of those nose & glasses combo’s just in case we get noticed!!

Lots of love,
Nathan & Jo.