Melbourne - cool city

Arriving in Melbourne where the sun was shining after pouring rain in Sydney, with the BBC World Service on the cab radio felt like coming home but I soon realised that Melbourne was a much larger and grander metropolis than Manchester, though not without its similarities. We’d got a deal at the Langham so felt thoroughly spoiled by our choice of hotel – all marble baths, comfy furnishings and bathrobes and slippers, very five star! We were on an economy flight as our round the world ticket wouldn’t cover quite so many stops in one country so we’d been panicking slightly about the luggage allowance. By running down toiletry stocks and careful use of hand luggage we squeezed in to the 23kg which was fortunate as it was totally electronic with not a sympathetic check in person in sight. It did mean that our first stop in Melbourne had to be to find a chemist to restock contact lens cleaner and make up remover – luckily we found one very quickly despite it being late on a Saturday afternoon.
The Langham has a great location on the south bank of the Yarra with lots of great bars and restaurants and just a short walk across the foot bridge to the CBD. Sadly we hadn’t planned ahead from a cultural point of view so we weren’t able to get any tickets for the many theatrical events going on but we had a good wander round the arts complex and imbibed the atmosphere. Just have to go back some time and this time plan ahead. The combination of historical buildings, river front and magnificent skyscrapers makes for a great city sky line and lots of incredible views. Saturday night we had a Japanese banquet overlooking the river which was exquisite – really fresh sushi/sashimi, spicy crab, wagyu beef, teriyaki chicken and caramelised banana. Sunday morning we set off on the Lonely Planet walking tour of the city, a great time to see it with plenty of atmosphere (including open day at the parliament building complete with Royal Navy brass band) but not too busy. We soon extended the tour to take in Little Italy and finally south of the river and the Botanical Gardens – several hours of walking in the end but with so much to take in and the most glorious day we didn’t want to stop. We felt we’d earned our fine dinner at Walter’s Wine Bar with another glorious view of the city sky line and a tasting flight of sparkling wine for an aperitif. The Australian sparkling held up really well against the Billecart Salmon but the Prosecco tasted pretty lacklustre when compared with the other two!
On Monday we made use of the Circle Historic Tram which takes you (for free) around the main sights, to see as much of the city as we could, hopping on and off to take in the new docklands development (a bit like Salford Quays but with more interesting looking restaurants), the Exhibition Centre and some more of the historic buildings. We decided on lunch in Little Italy which we’d admired so much the day before and found a tiny Italian, family run for another great meal – it’s lucky we were only spending 3 nights in Melbourne or I wouldn’t have a pair of trousers left that do up!
All in all a great place and one I’d like to have had more time in to head out to some of the suburbs and the sea front. I think we were blessed with the weather as the standing joke in Australia is that it’s always cold and rainy in Melbourne (yet another thing it has in common with Manchester and equally mythical!)
Tuesday morning we had to be up at 5am to get our flight to Alice Springs, where it was raining and incredibly green. This is supposed to be the red centre but it doesn’t look very red at the moment due to unseasonable rain and even some flooding. Luckily they’re upgraded our hire car to a 4WD so we will be fine if we meet any water on the road. The Chifley at Alice Springs compares very unfavourably with the Langham but I’m sure we’ll soon get used to a more realistic hotel accommodation!