Day 3 Melbourne and Torquay

Holbrook wake up and we headed south for breakfast, Albury Maccas was our target. Drue rejected Ettamogah pub at Table top (The original one)  so straight to Albury Station! :-) A lovely old building it is alway a pleasure to visit. This time as we apporached the station we saw an XPT in the platform... HMMM It was not the time for an XPT... then we remembered that track works in Victoria has all passenger trains terminating here in Albury. The first freight train travesed the section only recently and it was not yet open for poeple traffic.

As you can see the weather was just horrible. Wet, cold and welcome to Autumn.

Off to um officeworks..... yes... officeworks it is a tradition with us that we go to Officeworks during a holiday. (OK silly but we seem to do it) Went in for a pencil and of course $80 I got a pencil...

Now brekkie..... this Maccas has no door. It is so hard to find that it actually has an sign entrance on the wall. SIGH. Design fail

Onwards over the border to Victoria, stayed on the freeway with the intention to get to Geelong and Torquay to spend the afternoon in the spa of our 5 star hotel. We stopped at Glenrowan at Ned Kelly's ;ast stand fo Drue could have a look at a historical place and it was here that the day started to unravel.

I was showing Drue iPhone HDR, and when we had done that, he took some photos with his 7D. Well, tried to.... His camera, less than a year old had a shutter fail. ARRGHH That meant no photos for him this weekend. Drue would be a very sad traveller with no camera. SO on the highway towards to Geelong, we rang around the JB Highfi shops in Vic. We rang the camera shop that David and I like the staff at and they on the phone arranged a swap or did they???? Hmmm... Lots of calls to Ben who foudn the receipt and faxed it to David's phone. SOOOOOOO now we had to make a 3 hour detour into Melbourne. **SIGH**. We looked at the app for Melbourne's metro system and found thw farthest west station in the Zone one ticketing and headed for there. Hello Laverton.... Found by some miracle, a park at the station and we ran/hobbled to the station. We had 4 minutes to catch the fast train into Flinders St Station. Just made it. And Only just.
A quick ride up Elizabeth Street  on a tram, just so Drue could say he had been on a tram, to the JB camera store.
They had a look at the camera and the invoice and, even though we had said on the phone that the camera was 11 months old.... rejected a swap. The camera was too old but as it was still under warranty,  they would post it to canon. OK ... but that does not help for the Airshow. Hmmm we talked with Venice and Drue decided to get a backup body, a canon 60D. A nice camera, same feel as the 7D but a little slower. Same battery  but uses SD instead of CF. OK.. the 550D was only $50 cheaper, different battery, plastic body and SD cards.. so the 60D was a no contest. Drue walked out poorer but thrilled at his purchase.

Next door to JB camera, is Micheal's also a camera shop, but a much much bigger one. They handle second hand, new and lomo cameras. Most cool. They also hire out lens and have a camera museum on the 2nd floor. I headed for there (All free) and the boys went down the road to Teds and some other camera shops.. (Elizabeth is great for all camera wants)

Catching up with the boys up the road, we walked back to flinders st station and again had to run for a train back to Laverton. Make it so it was all working. :-) As we watched Melbourne go by, Drue got to know his new camera.
It was now afternoon peak time and David was sad at being caught in evening peak hour. Ugh... every city has horrible traffic.

We finally arrived in Torquay in the late afternoon. We were staying in the Crown Plaza and the reception guy was all smiles until he saw that we had booked via Wotif.. suddenly he went cold and demanded a drivers license and credit card due to wotif bookings. He actually said that. He was slow, sully and rude. We were placed a long away from the beach front, even though the hotel was essentially empty and had to take the fire stairs to get to the second floor. Funny thing is each of us earn around double or more of his wage. He can be a snotty as he likes but everyone who had a paid booking at his hotel should be treated the same. He has not seen Pretty Woman obviously...AND I did put a compalint on the feedback form.

The room was lovely anyway.. housekeeping do their job that's for sure... and it was welcoming and warm.

Outside on the otherhand was cold, very cold, windy and wet. UGH..  I wanted to stay in but the biys wanted to see Torquay. Which we did and looked like drowned rats after.. It was damned cold!!!!

Dinner was lovely at the torquay Hotel/Motel and the entree ruined the rest of the meal by being exquisite.
Returning to the hotel, the biys went swimming (nuts) whilst I stayed in. It was wonderful!!! Hot shower, a head dryer, lovely crisp sheets and my reading, plus the TV. I felt relaxed.
The boys returned and we watched TV before Drue went to his own room.
David and I watched our Big Bang Theory, and Kitchen Nightmares before falling asleep. ....