Melboune - Day 3
First of all at the end of day two we went to see a Comedy Show at the Victoria Hotel - Daniel Connell. He was great, very funny, I had many a good laugh. I really enjoyed it - I wasn't sure what to expect but the whole show was excellent. And after the show we found a place called "Max" near our Hotel that was a massive Italian Resturant. The staff were insane, literally running around with meals and drinks. Every now and then an old guy (The owner? The manager?) would wander around staring and looking. I'm pretty sure it was fear of him that kept the staff in utter turbo mode. Maybe not though. A very different style of service than sleepy ol' Napier. After Max we found a Gelato shop and had some Gelatos before heading to bed.
Thursday morning we got up early to try and get to the track for the Melbourne Walk, where all the drivers etc have to walk past to get to Pit Lane etc. Some of the drivers stop and chat and sign things, we were hoping to get a hat for Theo signed. We actually got to Albert Park at 8:15am, a full 15 minutes before the gates even opened. It was PACKED around outside the gates. And once they opened far out, people were sprinting around the place. By the time we got to the Melbourne Walk it was already PACKED - we managed to shuffle up to get a bit close to the fence, but it turned out that no one would be walking that way until probably 10am if not later, we weren't up to stay in a jam packed crowd (you couldn't move) so we left. Sorry Theo, your parents are just too old for that gig. Heaps of other people left too over time, it was too jam packed.
We left there and went back over to find our seats in the Fangio Stadium. We found them, they're pretty good. Here's the view from where we are. It's pretty quiet in that view, it got a lot busier as soon as the F1 cars come out to practise and as the day went on. We sat in our seats for a bit, then went hunting for some lunch etc. The only thing I don't really like about Albert Park is there's so many people bottlenecks. Thousands of people trying to cross over a road, but they keep putting barriers up to let the hospo/team cars through. So everything then jams up and then when they DO let you go, you have two massive crowds of people from each side of the road just bashing into each other - there's no left/right seperation. Anyway we eventually got some lunch ($25 each Souvlaki's) and then went back to our seats.
We watched the F1 Practise 1, The Supercars Race (pretty awesome) and then the F1 Practise 2, during which it started to rain. Thankfully the roof of our "Premium" stand kept us dry, we're right on the edge of the roof so we weren't too sure it'd work, but it did. Doesn't really keep the sun off though, we're gonna get burnt if we're not careful, already both days we've come home a bit lobsterish.
One the Practise 2 racing was almost over we lined up to get on the tram home, the queue was HUGE but it moved pretty well really, 30 minutes or so later we were on a tram and heading back into town. We got a little Thai takeaway for dinner, came back to the hotel and then got ready and went back out to the Boys Trip evening. That's the people who we booked the tour with. We grabbed an uber and all met up down at Hophaus on Southbank, got our photos taken on arrival. Had a couple of beers and watched David Coulthard give us a talk about his thoughts on F1 then, and now. It was actually really good, an MC asked him questions and he answered them, he was a great public speaker, very interesting. So that was a good night, nice to meet David the manager of Boys Trip with who I had HEAPS of back and forth emails about the trip etc (esp because we postponed it a year). Walked back home and went to bed utterly knackered.
Today we're just going to take it a bit easier - by that I mean not get up super early etc, we'll aim to get out there before Practise 3 and to watch the qualifying. It's going to be SUPER busy today and tomorrow - I couldn't get over the crowds yesterday and I bet it'll be twice as bonkers today.
That's it so far though!
Tim