I've never actually been to Melbourne before but I can never pass up a good pun.
Hi,
As you may have guessed I am in Melbourne. Beautiful city, sore feet. Those trams are excellent, the city is beautifully straightforward, as are the trams (mmm...pun intended). I also saw the botanical gardens, the observation deck and picked random people to be my unknowing tour guides. By that I mean I stalked random people around the city to see where they would take me. Worked well.
The MotoGP was excellent. Sunburnt. It was beautifully sunny but not so beautifully cold. My god those bikes are loud, I can only imagine what racket formula 1 cars make. I got plenty (80) of photos of bikes going fast. I really expected there to be quite a few young people there but I'm pretty sure the average age was 42, and the average sex was Man. That is, of the 45,000 or so people that were supposedley there, about 30,000 were probably 42 year old men. Most of which were wearing motorcycle gear. So many motorcycles. I'd have to say in the tens of thousands of motorbikes passed through Phillip Island over the weekend. It was funny, when they all came in (well they poured in over the three days leading up to the MotoGP but most came on Saturday) the locals sit on the sides of the roads drinking beers and watching them go by. I saw one group of 4 boys standing on the side of the road screaming and shouting and holdsing out their hands so that the odd motorcyclist would slap their hand and they'd errupt in a fit of small-town joy. It made me laugh. Speaking of which, I saw a Kookaburra and he was not amused at all. He had a worm in his mouth at the time and he was in much less than an old gum tree so I guess he just wasn't in the mood. Still...
I am now just rambling, killing time as my feet are killing me. 4 hours of almost solid walking in Chucks can be quite painful, especially after 3 days of solid walking in Chucks. I can only imagine what the Chucks are feeling.
Brisbane is my next destination. I am looking forward to the constant drinking, despite being up since 6am, completely knackered and with a mild case of jet lag. At least I'll have a nice bed, and mostly importantly a pillow that doesn't in the slightest resemble a jacket in a pillow case, even if it is just superficial.
Regardless of how tired your eyes are right now, I'm going to keep typing and rambling because all that lies outside this email is more walking. Let me tell you a story of my stored bag.
I stored my bag for the day at the train station. Pity the train station is now a pile of steel and concrete half way between what was and what will be. After travelling through countless makeshift hallways of particle board and orange arrows I arrived in the luggage storage facility which, from the distance I travelled, I can only imagine is located in a small town outside of Brisbane. Don't worry though, I took photographic breadcrumbs so I can find my back.
That should about do it. Your retina is probably already telling your brain that it has a very important appointment in the morning as it reaches for its coat and signals to the iris to fetch the kids.
So I should be able to write another message from Brisbane. If I have time...or basic motor function.
Love you all, and hope you're having fun in your respective locations.
Gareth.
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