What The Hook?

We’ve been keeping tabs on the weather in Northern Victoria and New South Wales because there’s some serious widespread flooding going on and we don’t want to run into it on our way back up to Sydney. This morning we completed our Great Ocean Road drive with a stop in at Bell’s Beach. It’s a major surfing beach that hosts the Rip Curl Pro surf competition every year around this time. We drove through Torquay and made a pit stop in Geelong for a walk along the waterfront before driving into Melbourne.
We drove over the West Gate bridge right into the Melbourne CBD. Not only do you have to watch out for buses, trams, trains, pedestrians and horse carriages, but also hook turns.
A hook turn is where you make a right hand turn from the left lane. Basically, you establish yourself on the far left, so you’re almost in the pedestrian crosswalk, and then wait for your light to turn red and the other side to turn green, then you can make your right hand turn, keeping in mind the traffic is backwards to what were used to back home. Simple eh? We avoided a hook turn for as long as possible while driving in the CBD, but eventually had to turn right, and luckily there was a cabbie in front of us we could follow. It’s crazy because you are actually blocking traffic on the other side from making their right hand turns even if it’s clear. This system is designed to avoid being T-boned by a tram.

We decided to let someone else do the driving, so we hopped on a free tour bus around the city. We passed the federation square and Flinder’s Street Station, the cricket ground, streets filled with cafes, University of Melbourne, Queen Victoria Markets (aka Melbourne’s Flemington), Dockland’s waterfront, Southern Cross train station, over the Yarra River, past the Crown Casino and into the Royal Botanical Gardens past the Shrine of Remembrance. It was a great way to see the city in a few hours.

We sat down on a sunny patio in Federation Square called Time out for some drinks & appies, and watched all the people pass by. Then we went to check out Melbourne’s MOOMBA Festival. We listened to some live music, watched trapeze artists and a water-ski jump competition. Willy took part in the World’s Greatest Shave which is a fundraiser for Leukemia, so at least he looks the way he does for a good cause.





We capped the night off with some amazing fireworks over the Yarra River. Our friend Mat was nice enough to let us stay at his place for the night. It feels weird not setting up the tent tonight and sleeping with an actual roof over our heads.