Day 88 - Monday 1st April 2024

To begin, a little overnight event to report. Just before midnight I was awoken by the fire alarm blaring in my room. Out of the room and heading for the fire exit, it seemed odd how so few people were joining me. Into the fire escape staircase, and it became increasingly obvious that I was the only one taking that route. As I descended the 8 floors it also became apparent that the alarm wasn't sounding on any other floors.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, and the signs lead me into the reception area where a few people were hanging around looking confused. The receptionist asked us to stay in reception as they were trying to figure out what was happening. It was then that people started arriving at reception in the lift! Really; using the lift when a fire alarm was happening? After 10 minutes they surmised that it was a smoke alarm issue, and we were free to return to our rooms ..... when I arrived the alarm was still going off. Another staff member was going to each room checking the smoke detectors, and shortly after this the alarms were switched off.

Back to bed, but I was unable to return to sleep for a few hours. Not the kind of excitement that I needed in the middle of the night.

Today was another down day; I'm not a great lover of cities and each of the city breaks on this trip have been an opportunity to take a breath and reset before the next section of touring around. That's very much what today has been. I had a late breakfast (by late I mean 10:00 by the time I'd decided to try the hotel breakfast), and then decided to go out for a wander. 

I walked into town, bought myself a cheap brolly as rain is forecast, and totally lost my sense of direction in a shopping mall. I exited onto Elizabeth Street, only to start walking entirely the wrong way to return to my hotel. Once I figured this, I jumped onto a tram as the promised rain arrived at 13:00.

I did nip out of the front of the hotel to capture some footage of the trams as they passed on Flinders Street for today's vlog as I didn't want a blank day!

I then spent the afternoon reviewing my plans for the next few days before being picked up by my cousin and her other half at 18:00. It was fantastic to catch up with Pam and Paul after a lot of years; I was picked up in the rain rather than taking the tram as had originally been planned, and I had a tour around the Melbourne Grand Prix circuit in Albert Park as they have not yet finished taking it all down following last weekends race ... it was quite odd driving past all of the grandstands, albeit the wrong way around the track!

We then had a fantastic Chinese meal as we caught up; they had some great information to pass on about my next few weeks, so plenty of reading to do. The time went all too quickly, and we were soon leaving the restaurant in a torrential downpour; I was returned to the hotel at 21:00 after a lovely evening with plans to meet up again in Halls Gap on Thursday. 

Straight to bed tonight to try to catch up from the last interrupted night, and straight out ..... hence the late update for today.