Cold Burn in Melbourne

The first thing to say about this beautiful city is that it is the coldest place we have visited since Ireland. In the middle of the winter, Melbourne brought back memories we longed to forget when we jumped on plane in Cork a couple of months ago (much to the dismay of our now acclimatised bodies). Arriving late on the first night we only had a couple of days to view this beautiful city.

On the first day we took took a free tram on a tour of the city. Melbourne must be one of the easiest cities to be tourist. They have a free tram to take you around the city, which had a guide playing telling you about various buildings. on top of that, there's a tourist bus, also free to take you anywhere out of the way. Very handy. Took about one hour but we got to see and stop off at all the famous sites. The most memorable is definitely the Shrine of Remembrance, Victoria’s largest and most visited war memorial and probably Melbourne’s most recognised landmark. It really is huge. We spent about 2 hours here! Great way to pass the day.

Melbourne is famous for its Theatre Cabaret district so the first event on the cards was the well recommended dinner show (http://www.draculas.com.au). Described as "A blistering cabaret show with fleshy humour and venomous variety comedy", we were immediately intrigued. This cabaret restaurant is the only place in the southern hemisphere where you get a ghost train to you table! Very impressive, and scary! A 3 course meal and 3 hours of laughter and entertainment, definitely a must for anyone planning to make the trip to Melbourne. Take a look at the dessert we had:


After the Cabaret we went to meet some friends from Mayo we first ran into back in Asia. On to the cookie bar where the rooftop is covered in artificial grass. We were tempted for a quick 5 a side game of footie but thought the bouncers wouldn't appreciate our skills!!?!!?!!? Very impressive bar, nearly as impressive as the dance moves Darragh and I attempted later on in the night.


Following day after the Dracula experience we attended our first Aussie football game (kinda like Rugby and GAA combined). At the sage advice of Ger Canning we went to the Essendon Vs Hawthorn Game and it turned out to be a cracker. It came down to the very last quarter and we found ourselves jumping up and down on the seats jeering and cheering with our new friends and fellow supporters. See how similar it is to GAA.

The Big news of the trip, Conor is back with us. After a short stint visiting some relatives in Perth, the infamous 5 are now reunited.




Onwards and Upwards; Goodbye Australia.