AFL Finals
Returned to Melbourne at the start of spring – mostly gray days with spectacular sunny days mixed in. The main activity in Melbourne in September is the AFL finals – start with 8 teams and then a weekly playoffs until the Grand Final and with 8 teams in metro Melbourne, usually a lot of local matchups. I was lucky that a co-worker got me a ticket to the preliminary finals (or as we would call it, the semi-finals) with Brisbane playing Geelong (a metro Melbourne team) – he was a long term Brisbane supporter and I sat in the Brisbane section the stands. Had about 100,000 for this game and Brisbane had a great come back for the win. One surprise is the celebration song for a goal is “County Roads” by John Denver – it was like I was in West Virginia. When I explained to people it was really “Clopper Road” which is near my house in Maryland that goes to West Virginia – people didn’t care. In the other semi-final Sydney won setting up a Brisbane-Sydney final played in Melbourne. Very rare that a Melbourne team isn’t in the Grand Final – been almost 20 years. And locals were thrilled with a bunch of Brisbane and Sydney people coming for the weekend. I had a chance at standing-room only tickets for the Grand Final – but decided to head to the country-side for wine tasting and a bike ride and watch the second half at a pub.
Classic blog below → Click Here for Upgraded Magazine Layout
Yarra Valley Wineries
Part of the “event” aspect of the Grand Final in Melbourne is Friday is a state holiday and I was off work, so Friday and Saturday looked to have great weather and we planned a trip to the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges. We had previously done a Yarra Valley wine tasting tour – but it was cloudy and rainy and for this trip and we were looking forward to a perfect spring day visiting the area and staying in a local town. On Friday, we joined a hop on / hop off bus tour and visited four wineries – the perfect day held and all four places were nice – but we are becoming wine snobs as the primary varietals grown there are Victorian Pinot Noir (very light, like grape juice) and Chardonnay, so we didn’t find any new favorites.
Rail Trail to Warburton
At the end of the day, we ended up back in Lilydale and we (or I) assumed that it was similar to other regional wine towns. But by 8pm it was completely dead and one Japanese restaurant was open which saved us. On Saturday, the original plan was to ride on the rail-trail from Lilydale towards Warburton and turnaround about halfway, but after a tip from a co-worker, we decided to start halfway and ride to Warburton. Great advise as it is a nice mountainside town near the origin of the Yarra River. But the plan to watch the second half of the game didn’t work as Brisbane was blowing out Sydney and not much suspense left. We then went to the Mt. Dandendong on the way back to Melbourne where the great weather continued.
Around Town
We moved into a new unit just outside of the CBD – closer commute unless there are protests over the main bridge. Biggest protests since I have been here – there was a Arms Convention and lots of protests – no danger just inconvenience. But got a little nervous when I tried an alternative route and ended up in the middle of the protesters staging area before the march with a water cannon overlooking them – but no issues.
Other pictures attached – including Sharon with the world-famous Pesto the worlds most obese baby penguin.
Leave a Reply