Ain’t that the truth. The fifteen-minute drive from the airport was absolutely beautiful. Everything is in flower – beautiful Rhododendrons and Camellias everywhere. The Avon River meanders through the town with pretty bridges over it and gardens beside it. Lovely walkways with rotundas and trees adorn its surrounds.
But lets go back a bit and cover our adventures so far. Leaving Ballarat Sunday afternoon we decided the boot of the Citroen really struggles to fit in luggage for four people but removal of the parcel shelf solved the problem. It will be a different story when we take Andrew home, so some luggage may have to be stored at CAT while we go to Kew and drop him off. Jordan drove us safely to Melbourne and we booked in to the Mantra. Gerard parked the car and we had a cuppa and settled in. We then headed into the city to have dinner with Andrew and Mel in Lygon Street.
Now, they changed the car park system at the Mantra and whilst Gerard, Jordan and Noeline sat in the car at the exit boom gate I had to go back into the Hotel and get the car park ticket validated before we could get out. This took at least 10 – 15 minutes and was not good for the blood pressure.
Dinner at café Trevi, saw us full of garlic foccacia and pasta, but determined to be totally indulgent we headed to Coco Black for chocolate and coffee Affogatos and ice cream. We waddled back to the car and back to the Mantra for a fitful night’s sleep.
Up at six and Noeline, Jordan and I and Gerards luggage catch the bus into the airport whilst Gerard parks the car at Cat and Mel and Andrew pick him up. We got through the queue very quickly and convinced the check in lady that Andrew and Gerard should jump the queue and check in straight away. They did this and so it was off to Maccas for breakfast.
We made it through passport check and customs, apparently they weren’t upset at all that we were leaving the country. Gate 15, where Air New Zealand leaves, is the basement of the other gate lounges, I mean it, and you go down the elevator to a room underneath with a concrete floor and uncomfortable seats. Not classy at all – didn’t they realise how important their passengers are. Eventually we get bussed to the cargo area to board our plane – not a glamorous departure at all.
We watched movies and lunch on the plane was a chicken pastie, potato salad and banana cake. It pays to sit back and watch your fellow passengers with their food. Gerard tried the potato salad and pulled a terrible face, then Noeline drowned hers in a packet of salt and gave up, so I decided it wasn’t even worth a try – a wise move apparently. We landed safely, much to Noeline’s relief, and they let us into the country. We bid farewell to the boys and collected our hire car, after a quick coffee.
After working out the intricacies of opening the back of the car, we were ready to head off into town and find our Hotel. GPS is great and we were here in no time. After settling in we headed out on the town for a walk around. We found the town square, more beautiful gardens, souvenir shops and a nice pub for dinner. The Tap is a brewery hotel that specialises in stone grilled meals and has various beers on tap. The waitress kindly gave us a set of coasters as a souvenir and we ate ourselves silly. The waddle back to the hotel was just what we needed to push the food down. By the way Gerard ate Bambi.
Back at the Hotel I dealt with the issue of the camera being all glued up from being in Jordan’s bag with a leaking “up and go” sometime in the past. Now washing the strap of the camera was not the problem until the whole thing slipped into the basin of warm soapy water, apparently a mili second of being immersed does not enhance the operations of a camera – I will let you know in my next post if drying it out with the hair dryer works. After also having difficulties getting the toilet to flush I was ordered to bed and told sternly not to touch anything else. So my friends, that is the end of our first day, stay tuned for our next adventure.
