Quiet Melbourne
Trip Start
Sep 2005
1
40
52
Trip End
Sep 2006
Melbourne,
Australia
Friday, April 14, 2006
What can I say about Melbourne apart from it's a city? Not much, except that Sydney is nicer. It probably didn't help matters that out of the 6 days I spent here, 4 of them were public holidays. It doesn't leave one with many options. Fortunately I shared a room with Anne-Marie and John from Clare who were more than happy to try and make the most of the quiet nightlife. A low-point was watching the Man Utd-Tottenham match 2 seats away from the most obnoxious ManU fan in the world (which is a highly contested title). The highpoint was when a Derryman sorted him out. Everytime Rooney appeared on the screen he shouted LEGEND! LEGEND! What made him worse than any other plonker in a red jersey was that he liked to impersonate all the ABU's in the bar. When Spurs missed a shot he'd stand up and do a big "Owhhhhhh". It was this which caused the tight wee man from Derry to blow his fuzzy ginger gasket
01 Downtown Melbourne
. Legend! Apart from that, Melbourne at easter is a non-event. It really doesn't have many redeeming features. You could take it or leave it. And fortunately, I'm leaving it tomorrow.
Pat invited me up for a spot more fishing in the Snowy Mountains last week, which was pretty amazing. If I was a 10 year old I'd claim we caught millions, and they were all huge. Truthfully though, it was superb. Trout-tastic! I caught fish on flies I'd tied myself, which was great. At one stage I had 2 on at the same time. Pat managed to land a big boy that broke me off earlier. I retrieved my little claret fly from it's mouth, tied it back on and caught a serious amount of action with it. It was a great way to finish fishing in Australia. All thanks to my gillies. Scott had lent us his boat, and Pat knew lake Eucumbene like his own back garden. Scott took us out on Jindabyne on the last day where the fish are bigger, but more scarce. They were still aplenty.
People say you can get 4 seasons in a day up in the mountains at this time of year, we only managed to get 2. Winter and the hurricane season. I never knew Australia got so cold. At one stage we were fishing in snow. Not what I was expecting. We camped out in -8 degrees! This was not the sort of fishing I would normally like doing, but when you have to drive 5 hours to get to the location there's no backing out. Even Pat didn't expect it to be so cold. We came in off the lake on the second day at 6PM and the window wipers already were frozen. It was also a really clear sky. That night it got down to minus 8!!! There was nothing for it but to light up the biggest fire you could
02 Landfire
. We did Belfast proud. There's some pretty strange wildlife up in the hills. We discovered a fox who was more like a pet dog. Then there was a kangaroo who attacked our tent in the night. He actually bit through 2 of the ropes. Do kangaroos floss?On the train back from Pat's place I sat beside old Harry from Armenia. Old Harry was in great form as he'd just turned 100. He'd recieved his letter from the queen, the PM, etc, and was up in Melbourne celebrating with his "kids". The eldest son was 73, the youngest was 56.....the baby. A very interesting guy to sit beside on a 6 hour train journey. One of the many things that impressed me was that he only started learning english when he was 63! What a guy. Needless to say he didn't drink, smoke, or use crack-cocaine.
