"When I think back on these times
And the dreams I left behind
I'll be glad 'cause I was blessed to get
To have you in my life"
Packed Melbourne Cricket Ground(MCG) with 90,000 footy fans and 2009 season's opening game where 2 former West Coast Eagles' stars Ben Cousins and Chris Judd collided was yet another dream come true.
When this trip started I had certain specific things I wanted to do. Seeing footy game in legendary MCG was one of them. Yesterday that dream was fulfilled. Footy is just fascinating sport. It is in fact 3rd most attended sport in whole world with average attendance reaching 39,000 each game. I just love footy. It is fast and exciting game. Oh, Carlton demolished Richmond by 83 points. So round 1 went to Judd as Cousins left the field beaten.
Seeing AFL game wasn't the only great thing that happened to me this week, other came completely behind the corner so to speak.
As I was coming back from Sorrento I asked Tessa what there actually is to see in Melbourne and after bashing Melbourne for 30 minutes with comments like: "Melbourne has all the stuff other Australian big cities have...but here it's just shittier version", comment which in my opinion sums up Melbourne quite accurately, Tessa finally remembered a place called Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, 90-minute trip by train from Melbourne. I looked at the place in my Lonely Planet and it was mentioned there very briefly in small sidenote only. Oh well, I trusted local's opinion more than LP's so next morning I woke up at 6:40am and jumped on 8:10am train to Ballarat.
Sovereign Hill was awesome! Let me try to explain it by going back in history, all the way to year 1850. Back in those days it was goldrush era. Gold was very valuable and only way for an ordinary settler to make a fortune. So whenever report came that gold has been found, it generated rush of hundreds of people hoping to get rich. In 1850, they found gold in Ballarat, Victoria. Hundreds, thousands of people came and a town was being built around goldmines.
At 2009 old town of Ballarat is transformed into modern city but few years ago someone had brilliant idea. They went to old library archives, pulled out pictures, drawings and paintings from goldrush era and decided to build an exact replica village to Sovereign Hill near Ballarat. Obviously someone in power also thought it was good idea so they formed Sovereign Hill foundation to help fund this project and making it non-profit organisation. Now, this is where the real genius came in. Instead of having this museum village where people could wander around, they threw group of actors there to portray 1850's lifestyle with authentic costumes, authentic shops, authentic food and authentic street theatre performances! End result is living 1850's city with authentic and realistic life where us(=tourists) can walk in middle and totally immerse ourselfs into life of 1850s goldrush. Just bloody amazing!
To improve immersion, they arrange school camps at Sovereign Hill where school kids and teachers are dressed in periodic costumes and all teaching is done the way it was done back in those days.
In village there was 3 schools where tourists can walk into classroom and observe the teaching as it was done at 1850. Even during classroom breaks children were totally immersed and played only the games children would have played back then. Amazing!
Yea, I took all the pics from Sovereign Hill with Sepia tone to give them proper authenticity. I think they turned out great...just like this shot of a trooper stationed there :-)
All in all, a fantastic hidden gem in Australia that is clearly not known to many people. And that is exactly what I think all travelers are looking for, interesting places which are not yet spoiled by drunken teenage brits who think traveling to Oz is about spending 12 months in Bondi topping mom's and dad's credit card and getting pissed drunk every evening.
What else in Melbourne? I went to Eureka tower one evening as well, luckily it was only evening when sky was clear so managed to get good photo during daylight...
...and during nightlight...
To those who don't know, Eureka is not the tallest building in Souther Hemisphere but it has the highest viewing platform.
Tallest building is the Skytower in Auckland, but that tower has it's viewing platform only about midway through, rest is just one big radio antenna. Hehe, thats Kiwi's for you, typical of them. They are so eager to get any kind of recognition that when they built their Skytower they wanted to make it tallest building in Southern Hemisphere. But instead of doing it the hard way, they just made and average sized tower and placed big ass radio antenna on top of it and woplaa, claimed the title of tallest building. Wuppiee...gg Kiwi's.
Today is friday and I could care less about the F1 circus that is all too visible(and audible) anywhere I go in this city. Roar of the cars in Albert Park is all too audible kilometers away and town is packed with car-humpers. Tonight I'm heading yet again to MCG and this time game is rematch from Grand Final last year, Hawthorn Hawks vs Geelong Pussies...sorry, Cats :-)
Tomorrow I will finally leave Melbourne for good and heading towards Adelaide via Great Ocean Road. What is my opinion of Melbourne? To be honest, I didn't like it nearly as much as I have liked other Australian state capitals, but it's still heaps better then any city in NZ. Many rate Melbourne higher than Sydney but I just don't get it. Sydney is stunningly beautiful and city has so many things to do. I met a finnish couple in hostel about week ago who had spent 2.5 weeks in Sydney and weren't bored a single day. They had been in Melbourne already for 3 days and had difficulty finding things to do and that exactly is the problem with Melbourne, there just isn't many things to do. Unless you know people in here, this city can be very boring and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Go to Sydney instead, or even Brisbane which wasn't that great but still prettier than Melbourne. Adelaide is now only state capital I haven't seen but so far I would list capitals in following order: Darwin, Perth, Sydney, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra(obviously last hehe).
Tero, out.
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