Running late to head towards the airport this morning there was a comedy of events. A girl moving into one of the other units had parked a van across half the driveway, we could have driven around it except that they’d left a washing machine standing in the middle of the other half. Rather than move the washing machine, three of them indulged in some very complicated conversation and exchange of keys, then started the van and inched it backwards out onto the street and around their other, illegally parked, vehicle. Growing frustration was tempered by amusement at their complete incompetence.
Then the event we’ve been joking about every time we drive along citylink towards the Westgate (bridge), we forgot to turn off onto the Hume highway and found ourselves heading rapidly the wrong way towards Geelong. Luckily it is possible to detour off, down through the last petrol station, then under the freeway, back around through the other petrol station, and up onto the freeway again. Not something I’d recommend though, especially since there’s a stop sign that seems to appear out of nowhere while you think you’re on the main road, only to discover that you are meant to stop for merging traffic.
After all that we got to the terminal only five minutes late, picked up Kathy and made our way, uneventfully, back home.
Did the tourist bit in the afternoon and caught the tram into the city, shopped in Daimaru1, then visited the Rialto to get a good view of the city from above. Probably the best part of the day to be up there, we started in daylight and got to see all the city lights come on. The observation deck has been updated since I was last there, about five years ago, and the very dated 1980-esque photos with 1970s captions have been replaced with recent colour displays of the numerous views. Other things that seem to have been renovated are the wall displays and brochures listing the Rialto’s place in the world’s tallest towers. There must have been much frantic reprinting last September, since there’s no mention of the World Trade Centre anywhere… they never existed. Slightly more odd, the brochures are available in multiple languages, fair enough, but there are three different copies with Australian, American and British flags on the covers. Unfortunately we didn’t grab one of each to find out what the differences were.
We even managed to find a tram driver with a sense of humour. Normally the announcements over the PA are incomprehensible, or all you manage to hear is “Sppttthht Street.” On the way in to town it was as if we had an ABC TV announcer in the cab, and then the message—“Spring Street, State parliament, Fitzroy gardens and lots of trees.” — all delivered in a dead-pan voice.
Footnotes
1 One shiny new teapot, on sale as part of Daimaru’s clearance sale.
