Just two weeks after watching Australia vs West Indies at the MCG we were back in Auckland at Eden Park to watch England take on the Black Caps.
The game itself was a little one sided as England restricted New Zealand to 185, which was never going to be a competitive total.
We went to this game with friends and work colleagues, and had a very sociable day.
While we were having lunch in Tauranga we heard very loud engines nearby and decided to investigate.
The noise was coming from the harbour area where a powerboat competition was just starting.
After an evening of music and wine, we started our second day on holiday with a leisurely walk around the base of the mount, in Mount Maunganui.
The weather was spectacular and the views all around our walk were very special too.
Today we travelled down to Tauranga (more accurately Bethlehem) for a concert at Mills Reef winery. The weather was perfect and our motel was a 5 minute walk from the venue.
After they finished, Missy Higgins performed. She is an Australian Singer/Songwriter, who despite being much better known in Australia, got a very warm reception. She seemed to really enjoy the New Zealand crowd.
Finally Opshop closed the show and were once again very good live. They got an amazing response from the crowd and it was a great conclusion to the concert.
After a brief stop in Federation Square for lunch, we took a leisurely walk along the banks of the Yarra river to the MCG to watch Australia take on the West Indies in their fifth and final One Day International.
The weather was fantastic and a number of people had decided to dress up for the occasion. The sponsors were offering $1000 for the best outfit on the day. As they were playing the West Indies there were a number of "Cool Runnings" bobsleigh crews.
A few of the major names did not play, but Chris Gayle, who plays in the Australian 20-20 contest (the Big Bash) did spend nearly an hour signing autographs and psing for photos before the game, even though he was injured and not actually taking part.
The game itself was a little subdued as the Australians were already 4-0 up in the series and neither side had much to play for. The ground (which can hold 100,000 people) looked quite emtpy despite the crowd of 20,000.
Luckily for us it happened to coincide with the annual St Kilda Summer Festival. All of the streets were closed to traffic, and there were hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of foods, arts and gifts.
St Kilda was a lovely seaside suburb and unusual to see a pier again, we would definitely visit again to spend more time exploring this area.
We had our evening meal at a modern Asian restaurant called Ginger Boy, one which we would both recommend. The food was beautiful and while looking very modern had very authentic Asian flavours. On our way to the restaurant we saw some of the New Year celebrations.
Today we visited the Old Melburne Gaol and the old city police watch house next door. Both located not far from the Queen Victoria Market.
The jail itself was very eerie inside and housed a collection of death masks, plaster casts taken after the convicts hanging. There were some very interesting and disturbing stories throughout.
The most famous of these convicts being Ned Kelly, his death mask is displayed at the end of the cell block. He was hung at the jail in November 1880.
Ater spending some time in the old cell block we had a very entertaining tour of the old police watch house. An actress dressed as a police officer processed all of us into the station and placed us in segregated cells for men and women.
This afternoon, we again used the free circle tram to go to the Queen Victoria Market.
After travelling around on the circular tram we decided to explore the area around Federation Square, which was opened in 2002 and sits on a concrete slab over train lines which run into the nearby station.
There were so many historic buildings around this area, including this theatre and St Paul's Cathedral (really) built in 1852.
Melbourne is famed for its street art, which many would consider graffiti, but is tolerated in certain parts of the city. This picture shows the grafitti outside of one of Melbournes top restaurants, Movida
There are also numerous sculptures around the city, from temporary works, like a house made from interwoven branches to this on the south bank of the Yarra river.
On Friday morning we travelled into the city and used the free circular tram to explore new areas of the city.
It is also home the Etihad Stadium, which is the headquarters of the AFL, and home to The Melbourne Victory soccer (sorry football, oops) team.
After the tour of the MCG we travelled over to one of the nearby suburbs of Fitzroy.
On our first afternoon of our long weekend in Melbourne we decided to go on a guided tour of the MCG, followed by a visit to the National Sports Museum.
The tour was very interesting and gave us a great look at areas of the ground that you would normally not be able to access, including changing rooms, media boxes and the beautiful members areas. Lance who was himself a member, gave us a very informative tour.
After our tour we visited the National Sports Museum, the highlight being the Shane Warne 3D hologram, which was very impressive. There was also a large bronze statue of him outside the ground.
