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Australian-football-Melbourne
Australian-football-Melbourne

Australian Football Fanatics

AFL or Australian Football Fanatics

Australian Football Fanatics

Australian Football Fanatics

Australian football fanatics is an understatement, ten days ago on Saturday September 27 2014 100,000 people were at the MCG for the grand final. Sadly for me Hawthorn smashed my beloved Sydney Swans. The Swans did win the flag in 2012 & 2005, this post focuses on my trip to Melbourne in 2006 for what we Aussies call an Australian football fanatics weekend escape.

Another incredibly busy year in 2006 for travel including Belem at the mouth of the mighty Amazon , Fortaleza on the north coast of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Buzios, Cabo Frio & another great trip to Tuscany & Portofino.

Melbourne Cricket Ground

Australian Football Fanatics

Melbourne Cricket Ground or the MCG is the home of Australian football. Until the 1970s, more than 120,000 people sometimes crammed into the venue – the record crowd standing at around 130,000 for a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in 1959, followed by 121,696 for the 1970 VFL Grand Final. Grandstand redevelopments and occupational health and safety legislation have now limited the maximum seating capacity to approximately 95,000 with an additional 5000 standing room capacity, bringing the total capacity to 100,024.

Australian football fantatics David Herd & Ross Kennedy 

Australian Football Fanatics

With my good friend Ross Kennedy at the “G” to watch a game of Australian football.

Going to Telstra Dome for Australian football

Australian Football Fanatics

Ross Kennedy with Mariana’s nieces & brother Steven Vasiljevic.

Melbourne parliament house

Australian Football Fanatics

Parliament House in Melbourne, located at Spring Street in East Melbourne at the edge of the Melbourne city centre, has been the seat of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, since 1855.

East Melbourne near the MCG.

Melbourne Australian Football Fanatics

A beautiful park beside he city.

 Flinders St Station

Australian Football Fanatics
Flinders Street is served by Metro’s suburban services, and V/Line regional services to Gippsland. It is the busiest station on Melbourne’s metropolitan network, with some 92.6 million passenger movements recorded in 2011/12.

It was the first railway station in an Australian city and the world’s busiest passenger station in the late 1920s.

The main station building, completed in 1909, is a cultural icon of Melbourne, with its prominent dome, arched entrance, tower and clocks one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Melburnian idiom “I’ll meet you under the clocks” refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance, which indicate the time-tabled time of departure for trains on each line; another idiom, “I’ll meet you on the steps”, refers to the wide staircase underneath these clocks. Flinders Street Station is responsible for two of Melbourne’s busiest pedestrian crossings, both across Flinders Street, including one of Melbourne’s few pedestrian scrambles.

St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne

Australian Football Fanatics

St Paul’s Cathedral is built on the site where the first public Christian services in Melbourne were led by Dr Alexander Thomson in 1836.  Soon afterwards a small wooden chapel was built elsewhere, and the area became a corn market until 1848, when it was made available for the building of the bluestone St Paul’s Parish Church.  Consecrated in 1852, this Church was used until 1885, when it was demolished to make way for the present Cathedral.

Religion in Australia is diverse but the country is predominantly Christian with, in an optional question on the 2011 Census, 61.1% of the Australian population declaring some variety of Christianity. Historically the percentage has been far higher and the religious landscape of Australia is changing and diversifying.  Also in 2011, 22.3% of Australians stated “no religion”, and a further 8.55% chose not to answer the question. The remaining population is a diverse group which includes Buddhists (2.5%), Muslims (2.2%), Hindus (1.3%), Jews (0.45%) and Sikhs (0.3%).

Australian Football Fanatics

 

 Melbourne skyline

Australian Football Fanatics

Blue sky in Melbourne is a bonus. 🙂

If it was Bangkok it would be a coup.

Australian Football Fanatics

Not Bangkok just Swanston St Melbourne, the weekend warriors having a parade.

Federation Square

Australian Football Fanatics

Federation Square in Melbourne, is a mixed-use development covering an area of 3.2 hectares and centred around two major public spaces: open squares and one covered, built on top of a concrete deck above busy railway lines. 

Federation Square

Australian Football Fanatics

Located on the corner Swanston St & Flinders St, Melbourne.

The Yarra River

Australian Football Fanatics

The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches. I hope you have noticed that Australian football is not the only attraction in Melbourne. 🙂

Yve 576-578 St Kilda Road

Australian Football fanatics

One of the many office buildings on St Kilda Rd.

 

The Botanical Hotel 169 Domain Rd, South Yarra

Australian Football Fanatics

This is one of my haunts from the old days living in Melbourne, not the same anymore (what is?) too modern & noisy now.

Melbourne friends

Australian Football Fanatics

Ross & Mariana Kennedy, two of her brothers & Nicole White.

Ross, Mariana & I leaving Melbourne

Australian Football Fanatics

After a super weekend of  Australian football fanatics we head back home to the Gold Coast.

                                             Here are some more posts to check out

         Life 2015                     Family history                   Life 1982

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  Adelaide 1972                 Iron Bar Freddy               Sydney 2006

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Thailand 2008                Gold Coast Babes               World trip 2003

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             Great hotel room rates anywhere in the world if you book
                  through these links below.  Book now & pay later.
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 That’s all folks
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Pattaya live webcam 
 
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Click on the photo below for my post on living on the Gold Coast in 2006.

 

Click on the photo below for when I lived in Melbourne in the 70s.

 

Australian adventures


Counter only started June 16 2020.

Author: David Herd

My history, particularly over the last 30 years is dominated by overseas travel. I sold my home in Australia October 20th 2011 and have have been living in Thailand since then. I don’t know where the time has gone? It seems like you go to sleep one night, wake up the next morning, and 20 years have flashed by. Not sure how many years I have left, however I have enjoyed a wonderful charmed life, and if it all ended today I would leave this world with no regrets. I was born in Sydney halfway through the last century, started my travels in the 60s with the usual U.K. Europe adventure at the age of 20, back to Australia and worked in Sydney, Melbourne & Adelaide in Sales & Marketing with multinational companies including Sanyo, Canon & Remington. Engaged to be married 3 times and never quite made it to the alter, finally realized by the mid 90s I was not cut out for "long term relationships" so I moved to the Gold Coast in Queensland in January 1987, worked for a couple of banks as a Financial Planner, I took a year off work in 1998 to travel and never went back to full time work again, after 25 fun filled years on the Coast I packed up and moved to Thailand. What is the purpose of this blog? Well I really want to use it to record my travel experiences & to display my photographs, give and receive travel tips, comment on places I visit, restaurants I eat in and use it to replace the autobiography I intended to write, apart from all that it helps me fill in my day. :) I moved to Thailand mainly because I wanted to keep travelling while my health allowed me to, there are huge advantages being closer to all the places I want to visit. Cost of living in Thailand is around 35% of the cost in Australia, plus flights are 50% cheaper because you are much closer to everywhere. ???? Consequently I am able to travel to many more places compared to living in Australia. Having said all that, it is & has always been my intention to return to Australia when my travelling is finished, I predict this will happen around 2021.

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