Week 556 · AFL Finals · Yarra Valley · Dandenong Ranges
AFL Finals &
Returned to Melbourne at the start of spring — mostly grey days with spectacular sunny days mixed in. The main activity in Melbourne in September is the AFL finals, and with a state holiday attached to Grand Final weekend, we used it for the perfect excuse to head to wine country.
The main activity in Melbourne in September is the AFL finals — start with 8 teams and then a weekly playoff until the Grand Final. With 8 teams in metro Melbourne, usually a lot of local matchups. I was lucky that a co-worker got me a ticket to the preliminary finals (or as we would call it, the semi-finals) with Brisbane playing Geelong (a metro Melbourne team) — he was a long-term Brisbane supporter and I sat in the Brisbane section of the stands. About 100,000 for this game and Brisbane had a great comeback for the win.
One surprise is that the celebration song for a goal is "Country Roads" by John Denver — it was like I was in West Virginia. When I explained to people it was really "Clopper Road" which is near my house in Maryland that goes to West Virginia, people didn't care. In the other semi-final Sydney won, setting up a Brisbane–Sydney final played in Melbourne. Very rare that a Melbourne team isn't in the Grand Final — been almost 20 years. Locals were thrilled with a bunch of Brisbane and Sydney people coming for the weekend.
I had a chance at standing-room only tickets for the Grand Final — but decided to head to the countryside for wine tasting and a bike ride and watch the second half at a pub.
"The celebration song for a goal is 'Country Roads' by John Denver — it was like I was in West Virginia."
Part of the "event" aspect of the Grand Final in Melbourne is that Friday is a state holiday, and Friday and Saturday looked to have great weather — so we planned a trip to the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges. We had previously done a Yarra Valley wine tasting tour — but it was cloudy and rainy. For this trip we were looking forward to a perfect spring day visiting the area and staying in a local town. On Friday, we joined a hop-on/hop-off bus tour and visited four wineries — the perfect day held and all four places were nice. But we are becoming wine snobs as the primary varietals grown there are Victorian Pinot Noir (very light, like grape juice) and Chardonnay, so we didn't find any new favourites.
At the end of the day, we ended up back in Lilydale and assumed it was similar to other regional wine towns. But by 8pm it was completely dead and one Japanese restaurant was open which saved us. On Saturday, the original plan was to ride on the rail trail from Lilydale towards Warburton and turnaround about halfway — but after a tip from a co-worker, we decided to start halfway and ride to Warburton. Great advice as it is a nice mountainside town near the origin of the Yarra River. But the plan to watch the second half of the game didn't work as Brisbane was blowing out Sydney and not much suspense left. We then went to Mt. Dandenong on the way back to Melbourne where the great weather continued.
We moved into a new unit just outside of the CBD — closer commute unless there are protests over the main bridge. Biggest protests since I've been here — there was an Arms Convention and lots of protests — no danger, just inconvenience. But I got a little nervous when I tried an alternative route and ended up in the middle of the protesters' staging area before the march with a water cannon overlooking them. No issues. Other pictures attached — including Sharon with the world-famous Pesto, the world's most obese baby penguin.
