Melbourne

Monday 4th February

We’d flown to Melbourne on Friday night, checked into a hotel and wandered out first to Federation Square and then to the south bank of the Yarra looking for dinner.
This was my first visit to Melbourne.

I managed to squeeze in a 1 hour practice on my yoga mat wedged between the bed and the cupboard in our tiny hotel room on Saturday morning – one arm slightly bending in the Surya Namaskars to avoid backhanding the cupboard.
I got quite easily to Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana, before graciously meeting my travel-companion’s patience half-way and skipping the rest of the seated poses so we could go exploring (but not before doing a few backbends and the finishing poses).

After 2 hours of inner-city street and market wandering we took to the road, visiting the surf capital Torquay and the surf break at Bells beach. A spontaneous urge to track down an old friend, Simon Buttonshaw on the way became an obsessive quest for the Holy Grail – Simon’s a dedicated yogi and teacher, a professional artist, a surfer and Quicksilver designer. We asked around some surf shops and got a few answers like “Yeah, was out in the water with him last week but got no idea where to find him”. D
ialling a long shot phone number I found out he’s in America for another week.

Our trip continued along the spectacular Great Ocean Road to Lorne, a picturesque coastal town where we spent the afternoon and evening on the beach. After checking out of the Lorne hotel on Sunday morning (no practice that day) we continued along the Great Ocean Road to Port Campbell, visiting the 12 Apostles (pictured above) on the way.

From Pt Campbell we drove back to Melbourne through the lush dairy country in time to catch the 5.40 flight back to Adelaide, a little sunburned and a little travel weary.
Just 2 days away on a mini-holiday and my head is pointing stubbornly in the opposite direction to 9-5 working life.