AUSSIE WEEKENDER 29

The train didn’t make up at night as it does in India. It just took its own time stopping in the middle and slowing down at times, to reach Melbourne- Southern Cross station by 8:30 instead of 7. Southern Cross station? I couldn’t find Southern Cross in any of my maps! All said Spencer Street station is where the long distance trains arrive and depart including our Country link timetables. So one more nail added to our crown of issues! I was still in sleep, sort-of got down at a strange station, left my tickets in the train.

The confusion got over when I saw the name board in the station saying Southern Cross (formerly Spencer Street). So R K Narayan’s street name changing story works here also :D. Now out of the name confusion, realised my tickets are missing! Ran back to look for them, and it was on the floor in front of our seat itself.

Now, I had to tackle the other problems, first the accommodation. As I mentioned earlier, all railway stations and airports have this automated helpdesk for accommodation. You will have a big screen containing some 10-15 hotel details with some rent details, and a receiver. All hotels will have a 3 digit number. You can pick the receiver dial the three digit code and you are connected to that hotel/ B&B. Started calling the numbers from the helpdesk (these are free calls). The first two places had vacancies only with shared baths. But as always, the third one clicked! It was near the station, some 20 minutes. We chose to take a taxi as we were not able to see many trams and we were tired too.

Booked the room, paid the deposits and rent, left our baggage there. We could check-in only at 1, so as we know we have to roam around till that. We finished our breakfast in the McD nearby. Went through the maps, and proceeded towards the Federation Square, the city centre. Our plan was to take some small trips or visit some areas which may be relaxing. We checked at the station to get a day ticket to use the trams and trains, for 6 dollars per person. It was almost one-third compared to the 15 dollars in Sydney!

The city centre was the junction with Flinders Street Station entrance (Picture) on one side, and SBS building on the other. SBS had a free area around their building for the public to sit and view their big TV screen. SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) is a major Australian Channel which brings us all diverse programs from different parts of the World. It focuses and boasts a multicultural set of programmes. We get so much exposure to documentaries from Africa to America, including the uncensored documentaries of US’s war histories and smuggled Chinese tapes showing their breach of human rights.

The best thing being stuck in between issues is that you will learn to appreciate the small things which you would have never noticed otherwise. You always go with no expectation in such a situation and whatever comes by, positive and unexpected, will be excitingJ.

The city which looks very quiet all this time looked crowded in this part of the city. It was sunny too, contradicting the weathermanJ ! A huge crowd was queuing up to enter a tram. All other trams are running empty and the trams from one stop are full! We got the answer quickly, Australian Open! All were heading towards the Melbourne Olympic park, where the Australian Open is happening!

I had got no clue on where Krithi got the idea to check the ticket rates at the helpdesk in front of SBS building. I would have just thought that tennis is a costly sport. But when we found out that it is only 27$ per person, and that too for a day with multiple entry, it was cheap. It was cheaper than the worst available city tour! We purchased two tickets, and joined the crowd. We got hold of a fan someone was distributing with ‘The Lion King’ logo on it. Then we knew that Melbourne got a good drama theatre environment too!

It was festive atmosphere inside the fully-packed tram – packed like our buses in India. The heat was on, which had triggered sweating, and it was an Indian experience! People were in different costumes to make it evident where they are going to (Picture ).

It was a 20 minute ride to be dropped at the Melbourne Park. A security checking and we are a part of the Aussie Open festival crowd (Picture ).

I was never a big fan of tennis with the exception of Steffi Graf J. But I never wanted to leave a chance to see Australian Open. We had no plans for the day and till 1 we can’t go to the hotel also. But there was this fact that I can’t recognise between the No.1 and the beginner, it was all the sameJ. The two three names I could make out in the schedule is Martina Hingis, Sania Mirza, Mahesh Bhupathi, and Leander Paes. But of them, all we had today was a match for Mahesh Bhupathi and one for Leander Paes, both playing doubles.

But they were all for evening. Now, any match was same for us. So, we both saw tennis at the stadium with the crowd for the first time in our life! We peeped in to one or two women’s singles, sat for a couple of game or for a single set and then moved to the next. People were obeying the unwritten rule to not move in between the play. After each game, whoever wants to go out will stand up and slowly move, and once the next game starts, everyone make sure they are sitting. Again, the heat was becoming worse, and we could visibly see the crowd choosing the shadows leaving the sunny areas literally empty (Picture ). We came out of the ground by 12:30 to get a tram back to the city and another tram to our hotel (by this time we knew how the tram system works). We saw one of the electronic temperature board showing 40 degrees! Checked in and just got fresh, as we were as on yesterday night :D.

We had spotted an Italian restaurant near the hotel for lunch, while walking in the morning. We went there by 2:10 and they have closed lunch at 2! It looked stupid, but he was telling that the heat was one factor. We got to the other side to get a tram to a shopping mall two stops away and spotted a Pizza hut!

Back in the hotel, we started looking for a tour for Great Ocean Road. The lady there was telling that most of them come back late, by 8 or 9. We had to catch the train at 7:55PM! Though a couple of them say the tour timings as 8 AM to 7PM, none is ready to commit to us that they can drop us before 7:50. There goes another problem! This was the main part of our trip, so we could not help but take a risk. There was a good part of it. We got a backpacker deal for the trip which was telling 128 dollars pp(per person) in our leaflet. For the backpacker, it comes at 78 dollars pp! I was amazed to see so much difference in rates for the same tour. It was the same package and the next day we could see many paying 128!

We booked the tour, and got a short nap back in the room. Started the evening by 5:30 again and went straight to the Melbourne Park. One the way we calculated and discovered that our Indian doubles matches would be over by 6! The heat was still there, but it was little windier. We were surprised to see the entire crowd retired to the shades, taking rest. We walked to court 6 where Leander was supposed to be playing. We found it deserted! It took time for us to realise the problem, the plays have been stopped due to severe heat(Picture)! So the good news was, both the Indian games are not even started. But the bad news was the play have been stopped so early that the game before Leander’s is also not begun! Now the play will start at 6:30 means they can’t have Leander’s game today (and that means we can’t see it at all).

The play started at 6:30, and we slowly moved around to other courts checking the court where Mahesh Bhupathi’s match was planned. We were lucky there to see that match was just starting! There were some Indian people here and there (Picture). We saw his team loosing the first set and didn’t want to see India loose after all this pain. Just took some snaps (Pictures), and I think I am seeing him first time.
We started by 8, back to the city, it was only starting to get dark. Took some snaps of the Federation square in Twilight(Picture), and tried dinner in an Indian restaurant. Again, it was a flop! Some run away guys putting names like ‘Flora’ and running an Indian restaurant in the heart of the city. It becomes worse when people like us choose to eat Medu vadai at a Sardarji’s restaurant! I took rice and some curry which was safe, but Krithi’s masala dosai and vadai( Medu vadai made with wheat flour)were still in crude form L ! A 20 minutes walk to our room, a long day and eventful day comes to an end for us.

We have overcome some of the threats like accommodation and weather. I will say we survived today, but what tomorrow… ? Weather is again very critical for our trip tomorrow. If Great Ocean Road tour gets washed out by rain, I will say we have spoiled the Melbourne trip. We also have this risk of missing the train as the tour returns just on time. But leaving it all for tomorrow.
Closing off the day thanking God for today and hoping the best for tomorrow….

AUSSIE WEEKENDER 28

I am not sure how many of you have seen calendars having this wonderful picture of a set of huge rocks standing in the middle of a beach, and with projections of a hill range on the shore. It will look as if the hills have split-up from their parents and gone in to the beach! Otherwise, how many of you have seen the film songs where the hero/heroin is shouting standing at the tip of a huge piece of rock with beach underneath it? If you have seen that, you have seen Great Ocean Road some 100kms near Melbourne!

You would have heard of Melbourne for the cricket ground, or Australian Open or at least in one of my weekenders. They call Melbourne the cultural capital of Australia and if you remember my story, this beautiful city on the banks of Yarra River was as good as Sydney to be considered for being the capital of Oz! May be if Melbourne would have been this good, Sydney would have become the capital!

It was a peaceful Wednesday evening. I was sipping a coffee back home, and casually asked Krithi on what can we do this weekend. As usual, she put the ball on my court. I asked, ‘What about Melbourne?’ She was looking at me like ’are you mad?’! It is 880kms away and takes 11 hours to reach by overnight train. A weekend will be enough if all goes well. Again, provided that you have to sit and come on the train whole night and go straight to office.

Krithi was excited of the place, I had shown her what is Great Ocean Road and she was dreaming of having her first helicopter ride above this natural wonder! But now, because of her present situation, we have to see that she is not suffering sitting the whole night, we are ready to face her vomiting while travelling through Great Ocean Road, which is obviously hilly, and nearly 600kms long!

I was ready for taking care of her provided she is fine with the travel and she was ready! We checked the country link, and booked the ticket. Checked for accommodation and forecasts, both didn’t look that great. But it is all done in an hour time!

Now comes budgeting. We had the big Cairns trip the week after next and I will have to book for my return tickets to India for March. So we were tight on finance. We took all the available booklets on Melbourne, and started budgeting. We had to choose between two tours – a penguin parade (which happens at night, along a coast where small penguins comes out of their dens in bulk and go in to the sea) and our dream Great Ocean road. They both won’t fit in, as the first one’s timing is from 3:30pm to 12 midnight. Again we may have to leave next day early morning at 8 for the Great Ocean road tour, and catch the train at night straightaway and me, end up in office next day morning. So it will become a hectic schedule. We dropped the Penguin parade at last, because of financial and time constraints.

The only part missing now was the accommodation. We need one night stay, which is tough to find in net. Most of them insist on minimum two nights stay during the weekends. By Friday night, I realised that I am not going to find any accommodation in Melbourne in net. That is something we had to risk. But even for the long weekends, I have seen people getting down at the station and trying the accommodation desk and get through with one! So I was sure that we will get something.

We started Friday evening. I was surprised to see that the train was an hour late! May be this is the first time ever I am seeing a train getting late by an hour outside India. It started by 9:30, took another one or two hours to finish off the ticket checking and to switch off the lights. We had tried two neck pillows from a Chinese shop, both were punctured L ! But still, I think we could sleep without much disturbance. Krithi also was not as bad as I thought, may be, we got some leg space between the seats.

All sort of negative things happening to us – no accommodation, negative weather forecasts, and now the train getting late and our sleep arrangement also flopped! But it is too late to rollback !