Cronuts an’ Puffing Billy.

24th January, Friday. Raining! Got the hop on, hop off bus again. Mainly just to get into Melbourne and see some of the bits we missed yesterday. We returned to MCG and went round the sports museum. Yes, that’s right, me in a sports museum!

Not as boring as I expected. I quite like cricket in small doses and the old Olympic exhibits were rather nostalgic.
When we left, after lunch in the Paddock Cafe, the rain had stopped and we walked along the Yarra river to the Eureka building, the tallest in Melbourne.

Went up the 88 floors to the viewing platform. Also went to the Edge, a box room that slowly extends 3m out of the side of the platform, with all glass walls, floor and ceiling.

This would have been more exciting if we had not already jumped out of a plane at 15,000ft or flown upside down in a Tiger Moth. The views across Melbourne were pretty good though.

From the viewing platform you could see St Kilda beach.

Seems we are joining the Barmy Army! We bought tickets for the England v Australia 20/20 cricket for next week.
Went into St Kilda town in the evening, to see a live band that we had seen advertised. Nice little bar called Lost on Barkly St and a great blues based band. Just like the Vigo Blues jam in the UK but with lots more alcohol. The lead guitarist Dave Moll, was smashed out of his skull by the end of it and wanted me to kiss him!!

25th January, Saturday. Cronuts and coffee for breakfast at Cacao Fine Chocolates & Patisserie. A cronut basically is a deep fried croissant, filled with raspberry jam, cream, dark chocolate and white chocolate. Heart attack on a plate. There are other flavours, which we will try before we go home to make an appointment with my cardiologist.

We then had a 25 mile train journey from Melbourne central, lasting over an hour and costing only $6. This was to ride on Puffing Billy.

A 1908 steam train, where you are encouraged to dangle your legs over the outside of the carriage as it clatters along about 12 miles of track, belching steam, thick clouds of black smoke and dropping soot all over the passengers. Brilliant!