Around The World – Melbourne, Australia.
My goal today is to get to Melbourne, Australia. It will involve a ferry ride and a 12 hour train trip, but this being The Western World, things should go smoothly. The tricky thing is the once-a-day train to Melbourne leaves at 7:32 AM, which is an unholy time for this night owl.
I woke up at 5 AM and did final packing. Dropped the key in the box and walked to the Manly Wharf. I need to catch the very first ferry back to Circular Quay at 6:10 AM to be able to make it to the train station for my 7:32 AM departure.
I walked into the wharf next to another guy with rolling suitcases. He’s going to the airport to fly to New Zealand to go skiing. Just a bit older than me, retired from IBM and then worked in the mining industry. He’s travelled a lot, including sailing a yacht around the world and climbing Mt. Everest. He’s been in some hairy situations in Eritrea but really liked the country of Jordan. I gave him my card, we may be in Spain at the same time later this year.
I caught the local train from Circular Quay three stops to Central Station and boarded my train to Melbourne. I chose a first class seat with 41 degree recline, lots of room, quiet and smooth and nobody in the seat next to me yet. I did have an indignant little old lady acuse me of being in her seat. I donned my best Polite Helpful Canadian persona but when she pulled out her ticket she was actually two rows up. Just a small huff and a nod and she walked away. I was stunned at how amazingly rude she was, but maybe when you’re that old you don’t give a shit anymore. I looked around at the other folks who had heard her tirade and they were all laughing.
The cafe car just behind me is good for any food or drinks needed, but I brought a 2L Coke Light and a bag of pretzel mix and a bag of dried banana chips with me, this is not my first bad-train-food rodeo.
Great rolling countryside views going by, lots of cattle and sheep, even spotted a couple of roos. Cell coverage is bad as expected but GPS can’t seem to lock onto a signal so I’m not quite sure where I am on the ride. Moving along nicely but not especially fast.
No power outlets that I can see so I can’t use the laptop much but the huge 5000 mah battery on my new phone should make it to the end. I watched many Bill Nye The Science Guy episodes, listened to music and read my book. The trip went by more quickly than I expected.
Got to Melbourne Southern Cross station just 10 minutes late, refreshing after my previous travels, Civilization did not let me down. Walked outside, very cold, the Sydneysiders did warn me!
I’m staying with Peter Campbell and his family, my manager at the ANZ Bank when we lived here in 1995-1996. I met Peter after his meeting at a hotel on the other side of town. While I waited in the lobby, a small group next to me was arguing about how to run a Chinese restaurant, quite entertaining listening to them! I didn’t think it could be so hard.
Peter brought me to their house in the eastern suburbs. I met his daughter Chloe and his wife Lena and the new Kelpie puppy Trixie. We jumped back in the car and picked up fish & chips. We had dinner and had a good talk about old times and Peter prepped me for the morning with the house alarm code, key, public transit card, tram routes, etc. I had a great sleep on a futon in an upstairs office, so nice to have a soft bed and actual human-tolerable temperatures.
The next morning I had a shower and played with the puppy. Walked out to the tram station, installed the Melbourne tram app, which is pretty good, it even tracks the real-time progress of the tram you’re on and gives you expected times at each stop along the way. I saved Peter’s stop as a favourite so I can find my way home again.
Arrived in the CBD and walked to Peter’s office. He came down and we had lunch in a crepe shop, I had goat chees and roasted veggies. Yummy.
We walked down to Flinder’s street, across the river to Southbank and west, then back across a bridge back to Peter’s office. He showed me where to buy my old favourite Darrell Lea licorice, as they’ve closed all of their retail stores but they still sell at certain shops around town.
I walked around a bit then took the tram to Church Street in East Richmond, then walked down to the Tesla showroom. Another town, another Tesla location!
The folks at the showroom were great. I talked with Nick, a service technician. He gave me the tour around. This location has a massive service shop area, only about 25% of the floorspace is used right now; I was asked not to publish any pictures. This building is meant as an owner support center while the other site at a shopping mall in nearby Chadstone is where they get the foot traffic and sales leads. I then spoke with Nathan the Product Specialist. He has a flexible role but is the go-to guy for technical issues. He handles walk-ins and phone calls, works 9-5 5 days a week, floats between the two locations. He does test-drives, follow-ups, and lead captures. He needs to log about 45 leads per week but it’s easy to do at the Chadstone location. We also discussed the Delivery Experience role and the Service Concierge role, with me filing the information away for a foggy future plan…
Tesla has to make locale-specific changes for the various markets around the world. The differences on the Australia model are: 1) No child seat option – against crash safety rules. 2) No web browser in the 17″ display – against driver inattention rules. 3) Mennekes Type 2 charging connector. 4) Some of the new autopilot features will be allowed, but some may not comply with current law and will be excluded.
I walked back up Church street and had early dinner at a greek restaurant, tzatziki and pita bread plus goat cheese balls. Really good!
I got hold of Allie’s LaTrobe Uni friend Carolyn. They were both in the Master’s program for Teaching English As A Second Language. She’s coming to Melbourne tonight but is going to a show so no time to meet up. We’ll try to get together soon.
The next morning I plotted out how to get to Chadstone Shopping Center to visit the other Tesla location. Can’t get there on the tram because it’s 7km directly south and the tram system is shaped like the spokes on a bicycle wheel. I decided to walk for exercise so I started down the main road and came across a bus station with a route sign showing the bus going straight into Chadstone and arriving in 4 minutes so I waited and jumped on the bus. The joys of accurate schedules!
The Tesla display area is actually in the middle of the wide hallway in the mall, not in a normal shop slot. It’s at a bend with a cupola above, a big pillar and a pair of escalators, the perfect place to pick up a lot of foot traffic. There was a functional white 85 kwh model and a rolling chassis with only the rear motor, plus a fake supercharger and a HPWC (High Power Wall Connector) unit that was wired up and could wirelessly open the charging port on the car. I spoke briefly to the Tesla staffer who I thought I recognized from yesterday, but the way he was talking was like he didn’t know me, so I explained about my visit to Church Street yesterday, my love of Tesla, my car, my trip, etc. I then sat at a side table playing with my phone and people kept coming up to ask me questions. I’d tell them I don’t work for Tesla but the staffer was always busy so I tried to answer best I could. They normally have two people working here, with two Teslas in the parking garage ready for test drives.
On my way out of the mall I stopped in at the huge Apple store. I counted 37! employees there and about as many customers. I asked the main “greeter” lady if there was a special event and she said no, this is just a normal day. Their payroll must be brutal. This is why Apple shit costs so much and they still have 200 billion in cash.
I decided to walk home instead of taking the bus. Took about 1.5 hours, up and down some quite big hills. Windy and cold, especially after the sun went down. Kept looking for an open coffee shop for some hot chocolate but everything closes at around 4pm!
The next morning I took the tram into Flinder’s Street station, then another train north to Ivanhoe, our old neighbourhood. I got off at the station and stared walking towards Jordan’s old school Ivanhoe Grammar when I walked past an electric bicycle shop. Stopped in and talked with the guy, he said hub motors are on the way out, and the bikes look amazingly good, nice incorporation of the motor and the battery packs, even a digital display on a couple.
I visited Ivanhoe Grammar and took a few pictures which I posted to Jordan’s timeline on FB.
I walked to our old house at 85 Bond Street. Nobody home so I left a note on the back of my name card. I walked over to Green Street to see if Steve and Natalie Kilpatrick are still around, Natalie is the sister of the owner of #85 and they helped us out a lot when we lived there. The current owner said she bought the house 15 years ago when Steve and Natalie got divorced, so end of that story!
Got email from Carolyn that they’re OK with me coming up on Saturday so I’ll take the tram in in the morning and catch the 1.5 hour train north.
Jumped on a bus about 10 minutes up to LaTrobe and walked around the campus, tried to find the ESL department but the whole Education department doesn’t really have a department office anymore, so I just walked around the building wondering if Allie had been in the same hallways, the same rooms. Felt eerie, 20 years ago Allie was here doing what she wanted to do, the purpose of our trip to Australia. Now she’s gone and the world moves on, new students going to class… I sat for a long time, drinking hot chocolate, thinking about the life we had here, the huge impact it had on all of us.
The next day I went for a trip with Peter into the eastern part of Melbourne, up into the mountains, the Dandenongs, the fern tree rainforest, the snow & ice covered peak at 1250 meters, the tall steel tower I could only get about 1/4 of the way up, the site of a DC-2 crash in the 1930s, small towns, bakeries and coffee shops. Excellent day.
The next day Peter drove me into town to catch the 10:39 AM train to Castlemaine. Walked onto the train with 10 seconds to spare! Great train ride up to Castlemaine. Guy sitting next to me was watching The West Wing on his tablet, we got talking about the show and Aaron Sorkin’s writing style.
Carolyn and Yasmin picked me up at the station and brought me home. Carolyn, Ritchie, Border Collie Florence and I went for a long walk around the town and up into a park, at the peak a beautiful granite overlook point.
The next day I walked down to Castlemaine town with Carolyn and Florence. We went through the artist market and farmer’s market. Bought some bread for dinner and a candle for Yasmin. Stopped and had lunch at Run Rabbit Run, had avocado on toast and hot chocolate. We went for a drive north to Bendigo, stopping for a short hike at Dog Rocks. We went to the Bendigo art museum, which had some standard artwork pieces and and some modern stuff like a very creepy lifelike humanoid/pig sculpture and a video of what I think were clowns on LSD. Disturbing. I don’t get art. At all.
Went to The Railroad Cafe for dinner with the family. Had to go with Plan B due to onions in everything. Back home to another early night. Used 3 layers of duvet and blanket to try to stay warm!
Here’s another stupid AirBnB glitch: I got an email that the room I requested for July 23 – 27 is not available. But today is August 2! What is wrong with this company, their backend software and the hosts? I did get a customer survey email and filled up the comment box.
The next morning I got up and had a long hot shower to thaw out from the cold weather. Being Monday, the family was all off to school and work so I took Florence for a walk into town, had a veggie focaccia and hot chocolate. Florence was definitely getting all the attention.
They say you can’t go home again, but maybe a short visit with good friends after 20 years is the exception to the rule. The city was as great as I remember and the friends as warm and welcoming as I could have hoped.
Tomorrow, back to Sydney for the flight to Auckland!
