Very excited today, my daughter Haley and I are flying to Melbourne for the weekend, we will go watch the Crows play the Bombers on Friday night and spend Saturday in Melbourne before flying home Sunday, this is the first time Haley and I will be away without her mother, I booked this a month ago and it has taken forever to get here.
Our trip started at 6am, Haley arrived at my place and we headed to the airport, we parked in long term parking and I managed to upgrade our tickets to business class, we then had breakfast in the Virgin lounge which was pretty cool, we flew to Melbourne business class so this gave us entry to the lounge, the above pics are Haley in the Virgin lounge and onboard as we prepare for takeoff, I liked business class, only 2 seats per row which is good if there is only 2 of you, the seats are more comfortable and a little more leg room, plus you get your own hostess which is pretty cool given there is only 8 people in business class.
Here we are at our hotel door lol
Being business class you get priority boarding and bagging, so we got off first and our bags came out quickly, we would have been out of the airport within 10 minutes of landing, we got a lift from a guy called Eddie who obviously runs his own uber type service, he was pleasant enough, was convieniant too, bit of a shock when we walked out of the airport is was freezing and very windy.
We got to the hotel around 11am but check in time was 3pm so we checked our bags and headed out to look around Melbourne.
Haley had recently been here with her mother so she knew how to get around.
We did a lot of walking which was ok, we looked at the Melbourne Aquarium which was a little average it is more a kids thing, to be honest I was less concerned with what we did and was more worried that Haley was happy, I simply just liked being with her.
By the time we checked into the hotel I was a little stuffed, we had walked all day and that after an early start, we headed back out for dinner to a place called The Sherlock Holmes Bar, the food was pretty good, not the best I have had but you would happily go back to this place for sure, cannot complain about the food and the atmosphere is good too, it was a little noisey as it is smallish in size but the look and appeal of the place was nice, really enjoyed dinner this night and both Haley and I loved the Raspberry soft drinks.
Friday night we headed to Marvel Stadium to watch the Crows play the Bombers, this was Haley’s first football game live, what made this even better was the Crows managed to get the win in a tight game that went down to the wire, it was awesome and I really enjoyed being at the game with Haley. We had great seats right on the fence at the 50 meter boundary line, sadly much of the play would be the other side of the ground!
Saturday after a bit of a sleep in we headed out for a walk around Melbourne, we did not really have much in mind to do, we went to the NGV to see the Egyptian exhibit but with the computer outage the day before they had ticketing issues, we would need to line up for a long time to see it and we decided not to do that, we ended up just going to shops, we had the day before bought Haley a Northface jacket, today we got a strack suit for Rebel and then we found a place for lunch, this was Cafe Andiamo which was down a laneway, the had a pizza then bought some chocolate for Haley’s mother.
Pretty much spent most of Saturday just walking around, the funny part to that is I enjoyed this day more than Friday because I had all day with Haley.
We had chinese for dinner at a place Haley had been to before called the Crane Restuarant.
The food was very good, not the best sweet and sour pork I have had but the mongolian steak was miles ahead of anything else I have had chinese food wise.
From there we walked around looking for somewhere to have desert, we ended up at a Pancake Parlour and decided to share a pancake and get a milkshake each.
We battled to eat the pancake as we were so full from dinner.
From here we made our way back to the hotel, Haley and I had become pretty good now at making our way out and back to the hotel on public transport. We did use a taxi to get to the Crane.
Haley and I sat up late talking and this made the weekend, I enjoyed the football but sitting up late talking to my daughter made the trip worthwhile to me, if I could only have one part of the entire trip this would be it.
Sadly it was time to head home, we shared a crossaint at Melbourne airport and flew home arriving back in Adelaide Sunday 21st at 11:10am
I really enjoyed the trip, I have never really had a chance to spend much time with Haley because prior most of the time we did something it was a family thing with her mother, this was really the first time I spent more than a couple of hours with Haley without her mother.
This has been the best and saddest part of my life at present, more on that in another blog…
