Melbourne is 1038 miles from Brisbane (1671kms) which naturally entails a plane flight to get there in any reasonable amount of time (although this little snippet of wisdom is true of most places in Australia). It’s best not to think of internal flights around the country as flying, it’s more like catching a bus with wings. A more painless process of travelling large distances would involve a leap to Star Trek levels of technology. Within the current constraints of reality, the e-Ticket system employed by QANTAS is just about as good as you could possibly hope to get. One quick flash of a photo ID, which for most people is a driving licence but for me is a passport, and a routine baggage x-ray later and you are in the departure lounge of the airport. Another ten minutes wait and you are on the plane and on your way. 1000 miles at 500mph means that two hours later and one bad snack in a box you are in Melbourne. No elasticated socks, no DVT, no worries (to coin a very Australian phrase).

The first thing you notice about Melbourne is that it gets cold there in winter. That might sound like an odd thing to say but on departure from Brisbane the sky was a perfect blue, the sun was warm and the probability of that changing at any point during the day was remote. Melbourne on the other had a very angry looking grey sky, light drizzle and a very cold wind. Apparently the scientific explanation for this has something to do with the cold winds blowing up from the Antarctic and the fact that Victoria is not Queensland (in a similar way that Wales is not England and therefore it always rains there).

Queenslanders, having spent a lifetime adapting to searing summers and barmy winters, have lost all ability to resist even moderate drops in temperature and therefore see Melbourne in the winter as a kind of artic challenge. As we got off the plane all manor of hi-tech space age fibres woven into brightly coloured shell suit type garments suddenly emerged from peoples bags. There was a sudden urgency to ‘layer up’ in order to prevent hyperthermia setting in as they made the treacherous journey from the airport exit to the taxi rank, frostbite threatening to rob them of a couple of fingers every step of the way.

There was nothing as simple as a taxi for us; we were going to hire a car. Having just flown a thousand miles needing nothing more taxing than a photo ID, it never ceases to amaze me just how complicated hiring a car can be (and this seems to be true no mater which country you are in). Money, a driving licence and your signature should be more than a fair exchange for the use of a car. How can the whole process take more than two minutes (especially when its been pre-booked), but no this is only the beginning of the process. A committee must have sat down somewhere and spent days or possibly weeks coming up with a list of the most banal, inane, pointless questions they could think of and then typed them into a list. Another committee scoured the world for the singularly most board, uninterested and unhelpful individuals they could find. After months of training to perfect a threatening scowl and remove any last vestiges of personality they were given a cheap badly fitting uniform and sat behind a strategically positioned desk designed to get in everyone’s way. At this point of contact, you then have the pleasure of trying to figure out which of the thirty seven insurance options is right for you while annoyed passengers try to manoeuvre luggage trolleys around the exit you are blocking. This twenty five minute process of course ensures that there are never less than thirty people in the queue in front of you and the whole experience takes as long as the flight you have just come in on.

When we finally managed to prise the car keys from the “Automotive (light passenger vehicle) distribution managers” hand we had to purchase an e-Toll pass (which obviously couldn‘t be included in the car hire agreement as they haven’t set up a committee to look into how they could make that process more complicated yet). This involves the use of an “interactive automated customer interface point” or ticket machine as we like to call them back home. Tolls in Melbourne are very high tech and involve the use of electronic tags in the car read by scanners over the road. However for out of towners and rental car victims … sorry customers like us, you have to buy a day pass. This is linked to a computer data base. Cameras over the road read your number plate and check that you have a pass. I am not sure what happens if you don’t have a valid pass but you can probably expect a visit from the toll police while you lay in bed fretting about the treatment meted out in toll prison with the rubber toll truncheon.

I think interactive kiosks must be designed by the same people who design the timers on video recorders. There can be no other explanation for the level of complexity involved in such a simple task. You basically need to answer three questions, how long do you want the pass to last, which state was your car registered in and what is the registration number. How complicated is that? Well unless you have a degree in nuclear physics and are fluent in chaos theory, you have absolutely no chance of figuring the ticket machine out. Screen after screen of gibberish and jargon ensure you have to go through the whole process at least twice to make any sense of what you are reading. You leave clutching what you hope is a valid pass for the next three days while keeping a wary eye out for the toll police each time you pass under a motorway gantry.

So off we go, heading into the city centre. Now luckily I was a) a passenger and b) with people who are familiar with the streets of Melbourne. For the unwary you are guaranteed to have a huge car crash the first time you attempt to turn right at an intersection! To explain this rather bizarre statement, you need to be aware that Melbourne still has trams. The trams run down the centre of the (very wide) streets. If you tried to turn right in the normal manor, i.e. from the middle of the road as approached from the right hand lane, you would be directly in the path of an on coming tram. This would not only ensure a thriving dry cleaning industry but a large number of no doubt fatal accidents. Fifteen ton trams can make quite a dent in the side of your average car. For this reason, cars turn right from the left hand lane. As much as I would like to explain the process involved in this manoeuvre, even though I have seen it performed dozens of times, it is such an alien concept that somehow it does not compute in your brain. You sort of get in front of the cars waiting to go across you. It obviously works because people are doing it all the time, but every time you see it, your brain says “that’s stupid, it won’t work”. Let’s just say, I wouldn’t recommend driving to anyone who has never been there before and seen “the right turn” performed by the locals.

After checking into the hotel and a spot of expeditionary shopping, we all got wrapped up and headed off to the Melbourne town hall to see Circus Oz. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I had visions in my head of “The Amazing Bruce” and his incredible disappearing tinnies, possibly followed by a big clown fight in the car park afterwards. What we actually got was a group of touring circus performers. If you were really unkind, you would call them a bunch of freaks with good balance and exceptional hand eye coordination, but they were much more than that. There whole act was a mixture of very funny physical comedy, over the top theatrical shenanigans and some real “oh that’s going to sting in the morning” moments. Judging by the raucous laughter and the ‘ohhs’ and ‘ahrs’, I think it would be safe to say everyone had a great time.

After the show we went for dinner at a nice restaurant by the river and then headed back to the hotel. On the way back we had to walk over a small foot bridge. Half way across the bridge, sitting on the floor was a young man of obviously limited means. Totally oblivious to the passing crowds he was playing a length of grey drain pipe (which still had the S bend attached to one end). This in itself was fairly bizarre to say the least, however it was what he was playing which managed to bring tears of laughter to my face. If Richard Baker was about to introduce him on Last Night of the Proms, it would go something like:

“And now after his successful tour of major European cities, direct from the Sorbonne we are going to hear Weird Guy with drain pipe and S bend play the George Sholti arranged master work ‘Orgasm Sounds’ in the key of F”

This guy was completely lost in his own little world and you could hear him from miles away. If Beethoven had know just how far the sound of a drain pipe carried he could have extended his career by at least a couple of years.

Everyone had a good chuckle at this rather intense personal performance, but for some reason this really tickled my funny bone. Long after everyone else had stopped laughing I was in fits of hysterics. The more I tried to stop, the funnier the whole thing became. In the end I couldn’t control my self and just burst out laughing much to everyone else’s amusement. By the time I had regained something close to self control, my sides literally ached. A very assuming end to a great day.

The next day we set off to do some serious sight seeing. First port of call was the Melbourne Gaol (or Melbourne Goal as they had written on the wheelie bins outside) to see the Ned Kelly exhibition. The Gaol was built to cope with an increasing need to house a large prison population in Victoria. Between it’s construction in the mid 1800’s and its closure in 1929 it was the sight of 135 hangings. It’s most famous inmate was of course Ned Kelly who was hung there on 11 November 1880. The whole ground floor is given over to the story of his life leading up to his capture and execution. It is a strange mixture of reverence and disgust. The last item on display is Ned’s death mask. After all prisoners were hung, they were taken to the mortuary, had there heads removed and a plaster cast was taken of there face. Victorian prison warders obviously had great foresight, realising that one day these death masks would draw large numbers of tourists into a rather plain looking old building. I can think of no other reason to remove someone’s head and make a plaster cast of there face?

The second floor was, in my opinion, more interesting. Each cell on the wing contained the death mask and story of one of the prisoners who met there demise there. Some of the stories were truly horrific. There were some very unsavoury characters around in Australia at the turn of the century. It also appeared that there were quite a few unfortunate individuals who ended up in prison for no better reason than they were a little slow on the uptake. Reading between the lines, it seems quite a few people went to the gallows when maybe they shouldn’t have.

One of the more interesting titbits on offer in the various displays was the fact that people were still publicly flogged in Australia up to 1956. I thought I had misread this when I first saw it, surly that should be 1856, but no, 1956 it was.

The top floor was where the woman prisoners were held. The cells were twice as big as the men’s cells, but life by all accounts wasn’t a lot of fun. Most of the day was spent doing boring repetitive jobs right up until you were hung, although you did get a cake for Passover if you were Jewish. This was a privilege not afforded to any other religion. For some reason Judaism was the most popular religion in the prison!

All that death and depression obviously makes you hungry so we headed back into town to find something to eat. This led us into Melbourne’s largest shopping centre, Melbourne Central. Unlike most modern shopping complexes, this one has been built around an old Victorian lead shot factory, over the top of which is a huge glass atrium. The factory produced, among other things, pellets for shot guns. To do this it had a tall thin tower from which globs of molten lead were dropped. As it fell, it formed a perfect sphere and by the time it hit a sand pit on the ground, it had solidified. This is a building with a lot of history and a story to tell, unfortunately, there was no mention of any of this in the whole shopping centre. In fact the bottom of the lead works had been converted into a theme pub and National Geographic shop. A true waste of an interesting piece of history.

Our next stop was the observation deck of the tallest reinforced concrete building in the southern hemisphere. The Rialto Towers is a twin tower office block 823 feet high (253 meters). The building itself is very plain, with nothing of any great note to mark it out from the other tower blocks in downtown Melbourne, however the 360 degree view from the top is stunning. On two sides of the observation deck is an outdoor viewing platform. Going outside even at this fairly moderate altitude gives you an inkling of the sort of wind forces that batter large building. Stand out of the shade of the buildings edge and the wind positively roars past your ears. The total force on the side of the building must be mind numbing.

Having taken in the city views for half an hour or so, we set off to our last stop of the day, Captain Cooks cottage. To get here we jumped on the free city centre tram. These old trams run in a loop around the centre of Melbourne and are really just there to ferry tourists around the major landmarks. Compared to the swish modern trams that glide round the rest of Melbourne, the word clunky springs to mind for these old relics. It is not hard to see why most cities wanted to ditch trams in the 1950’s and 60’s. Compared to modern buses of the time, trams must have seemed very unfashionable. The irony is that now everyone wants to get rid of all the buses pouring out pollution into city streets and go back to trams. The city burgers of Melbourne must be very pleased with themselves for resisting the temptation to follow the crowd and tarmac over the tram lines.

Captain Cooks cottage was built in Great Ayton, Yorkshire in 1775 and purchased in 1933 by Sir Russell Grimwade as a centenary gift to the people of Victoria. It was shipped to Australia in 253 crates, including a cutting from the ivy which had grown on the original building. It was rebuilt in the grounds of Fitzroy Gardens close to the Victoria government buildings. I have to say that as small English cottages go, it is not massively exciting, although it is rather unusual to come across one in an Australian park!

That nights dinner was going to be at the Crown Casino and entertainment complex. The Crown is a huge Vegas style casino with a large number of restaurants by the side of the Yarra River. We ate outside on the terrace opposite a ‘dancing’ fountain. To say this was a kiddie magnet would be the understatement of the year. When you are eight, what can be more fun than showing off to your friends by standing in the middle of a fountain on a cold night getting blasts of freezing chlorinated water sprayed up your trouser legs. Of course the real amusement comes from watching the little treasures being dragged out by the ears by there far from happy parents and then seeing them turn a delightful shade of blue as hypothermia sets in.

Watching small children freeze to death wasn’t the only alfresco entertainment on offer. All along the water front are tall towers with streams of water running down the outside. Nothing particularly exciting in itself, however once an hour on the hour the tops erupt into a series of fire balls. It’s quite a spectacular show and brings the whole river front to a standstill. It’s also handy for reviving semi frozen children. Apparently, when the towers were first installed, the settings for the gas pressure were miscalculated and the flames shot so high that passing pigeons were catching fire and falling on tourists setting there hair on fire. I’d have to say that if it was up to me, I wouldn’t have adjusted the flames, the old settings sounded far more entertaining.

After dinner, we hit the casino. I had a cunning plan to get rid of the large quantity of $1 and $2 dollar coins that had accumulated over the course of my stay. I figured that with my gambling track record I could dispose of the whole stash in about ten minutes by feeding them into the pokkies (slot machines). Unlike Vegas, the pokkies were more like the complicated slot machines that litter English fish and chip shops and dusty corners in pubs. It is not just a case of sticking the coin in and pressing one button to see if you win or loose. These have hundreds of buttons controlling thousands of options. Unless you spend a long time experimenting with all the options you never really understand what’s happening. Undeterred I put my first dollar in, pressed a verity of buttons until something happened and out popped $10. Okay, maybe an extra five minutes to get rid of the whole stash but I decided to double up and put $2 in at a time. Three goes later and another $20 poured out. This was not going to plan. I now had more money than I started with and it was all in $1 coins. I gave up. We had a rather unsuccessful two minutes on the roulette table and left.

Our last day was going to be spent at Philip Island to see the Penguin Parade. This is a small island just off the coast about 87 miles (140 kms) from Melbourne. On the way we stopped in St Kilda for breakfast. As we were leaving we spotted a Sunday market opening up along the sea front so we spent some time perusing the craft stalls. As we got to the last stall we found ourselves opposite the entrance to the pier so we walked out to the end to take in the views.

We arrived on Philip Island at about 5pm. We had to catch our plane back to Brisbane at 8:55pm so we worked out we had to leave by 6pm to get back in time. The reason for coming to Philip Island is to see fairy penguins coming ashore to roost for the night. They do this every night and the time they come ashore is determined by how dark to sky is. The board in the visitors centre said they had come ashore at 5:48pm the night before. This meant that at best we would see them for about ten minutes. As we had come all this way it still seemed worth it to stay and wait for them. We got tickets and went to the viewing area by the beach. This consisted of twenty or so concrete steps on the side of a hill running down to the beach. The place was absolutely packed with tourists all waiting for a glimpse of the penguins. We took up position and waited. The sky blackened and expectations began to rise. At 5:54pm an announcement came over the tannoy. Penguins had been spotted just off the coast. A reverential hush descended over the crowd as every one strained to see into the blackness of the sea beyond the beach. At 5:56pm a small clump of penguins emerged from the sea and stood by the waters edge on the beach. Now fairy penguins real name is Little Penguin and for good reason. As members of the penguin family go, these are by far the smallest. As they made tentative stabs at leaving the waters edge and making a run for the hills across the badlands of the beach (this is the point they are most vulnerable to foxes and feral cats), a large ‘ooohhhh’ went up from the crowd. While being afraid of prowling wildlife, the little birds seemed unperturbed by five hundred people sitting watching them on a spot lit beach. As a few more groups made a dash for the safety of the roosting grounds, the clock struck six and we had to leave.

As we walked back along the boardwalk to the visitors centre we got a close look at the penguins that had ventured back. They were busy searching out roosts and calling to one another in the dark. Had it not been for the need to get back for the plane it would have been very easy to spend a couple of hours watching these comedic little birds.

Luckily the drive back went without incidence as we had factored no time in for problems. We got to the airport with minutes to spare, flashed our photo ID and we were on our way back to Brisbane. One uneventful flight and another bad meal in a box later and we were home.