We flew down to Melbourne tonight for a few days off.
Leanne finished up work early and I picked her up so she could come home and get ready. We then caught a train to the airport – cheaper than catching a taxi. It costs around $45 for two return tickets from Artarmon to the domestic airport, while a taxi costs over $50 one way. You just have to plan ahead a bit more and allow plenty of time to get there … and hope that the trains don’t break down!
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, checked in and headed to the Qantas club lounge. This trip will be the last time I will be able to get into the lounge, my Gold status expires at the end of the month and I haven’t done enough flying to requalify for anything. Fortunately I now have lifetime Silver status, so I don’t lose all my status, but Silver isn’t that useful, and it won’t get us into the lounge.
Had a bit of a scare after passing through security, I was hoisting my backpack onto my shoulder which had all my camera gear and my laptop in it – when one of the clips that hold the straps in place snapped and the bag fell from my back to the floor. I was a bit worried about my gear, but after checking through it all once we got to the lounge, everything seemed to be okay.
The flight was non-eventful (the best kind), and we arrived in Melbourne just after 9:30pm. After collecting our bags, we headed across to Hertz and picked up a car and then set off to our hotel.
When we had been planning our weekend away, I used wotif.com to find accomodation – but I noted that most hotels around the city seemed to have quite expensive rates for the weekend, and many of them had no last minute deals at all. It took me a while to figure out why – but eventually I realised that it was AFL Grand Final weekend! We did consider changing our plans – but we were pretty keen to spend some time in Melbourne, so I persisted with my search.
Eventually I found a decent price at a hotel in St.Kilda – the Cosmopolitan, which seemed strangely familiar when I was booking. When we arrived I knew why – we had stayed here before, but it was being renovated at the time, so they only had a few rooms available and they were on special. Located on Carlisle Street, just off the end of Acland Street, it really is in a great location – close to all the restaurants and cafes, short walk to the beach, and easy access to trams.
We checked in and got settled and spent some time planning our next few days.
Tweets from today
- at the airport heading to Melbourne for a few days with my wife
- 24th September, 2008 7:21 PM from web
Leave a Reply