Melbourne

 Day 1 – Rock This Town!

Today we were finally going to hit Melbourne and had about another 300km on the road.  Along the way we pulled into a lay-by for our breakfast of samosa’s before hitting the suburbs of Melbourne around midday.

For the first night we had been invited to stay with a lady named Donna who we had met in The Philippines. Donna had kindly offered to put us up when we hit her city.  Although we were unsure whether to take up the offer, Donna had kept in touch with us via facebook and said she was more than happy to let us stay, how nice is that?

As we had arrived early we stopped at a Bottelo to pick up some ciders and wine so we didn’t turn up empty handed.  We were still going to arrive a bit early so we found a bar about 5 miles away and stopped there for a couple of drinks before heading to her house.

We arrived at Donna's house which was a nice 3 Bedroom house in the Melbourne suburb of Highett. When we turned up we were given a warm welcome and shown to a nice bedroom, once we dumped our bags we then sat outside on Donna’s decking and had a couple of ciders whilst we caught up and got to know each other again.

Later in the afternoon Donna took us by train into central Melbourne so we could have our first look around the city.  Our first impressions were really good and we were soon sitting in an open air bar alongside the river.

After a quick drink we then headed over the river where we found a food court and picked up some take-away food . We took the food outside to eat it by the river whilst we waited for some pyrotechnics to start.  On the hour every hour large bursts of flames were shot out of about 6 towers along the river and was a pretty impressive way of marking the hour.

Food done,  Donna said it would be a good idea to get to the bar early as it was likely to be busy. We caught one of the city’s trams to the area of St Kilda, which was quite a laid back bohemian area.

We headed for the bar and got some beers and sat outside chatting and then Donna’s house mate and old friend Tracie joined us.  Continuing to chat whilst we waited for the band to start we also got chatting to some colourful locals and we found out that pretty few Austalian’s have been to Ayers Rock (where we were due to go in the next few days).

Around 8.30 the band eventually came on and we were pretty pleased that it was a Rock-A-Billy band called ‘The Strays’ who pretty much modelled themselves on the Stray Cat’s and they launched into a few rock ’n’ roll classics.

The band were really good and during the second set the lead singer/guitarist was soon jumping on the bar and getting the crowd really going.  The set, much to my appreciation finished with The Stray Cat’s ‘Rock This Town’ which got me bopping like a good’un.

Once the band finished we all then got a cab back to Donna’s where we cracked open a bottle of red and continued the party.   At some point during the night as Donna had never been to Ayers Rock, we convinced her to come on the trip with us. So whilst we sat there she booked herself the same flights as us.  She may regret that in the morning!!