I had booked a ticket from Melbourne to Perth for the last Wednesday of June. On the Tuesday evening, I noticed a deep fog sweep over the central area of Melbourne. In my mind, I thought that might just prove to be a problem as I remembered Jude (on the Great Ocean Road tour) telling us that the south coast gets these amazing pea soup fogs. If the fog were to persist through the morning, I thought my flight might get cancelled. I checked the internet before I went to bed. But nothing showed as a problem, so I went to sleep hoping for the best. Bright and early (well, early at any rate since I am not so bright after getting up at 3 in the morning), I got up and headed to the shuttle bus terminal to head to the airport. There was fog in Melbourne, but it didn't seem too bad. However, as the bus continued towards the airport, the fog got deeper and deeper. After arriving at the airport, I checked in and got my boarding pass and cleared security to the waiting area. This particular airport is a budget terminal and only serves the two airlines of Tiger Airways and Jetstar. There happened to also be an early morning flight for Jetstar, and as I was sitting in the waiting area, a woman on the Jetstar flight approached me and asked if the Tiger flight was going to be delayed by the same length of time as hers. I said that it appeared that Tiger was going to fly. At check-in they had nothing about a delay. And they were giving every indication that they were preparing the flight for take-off. The woman was a bit surprised, as was I, but I just thought that maybe they had more information about the fog situation than anyone else.
Shortly thereafter, Jetstar announced to their passengers that since their flight was being cancelled, they would be transported to the other Melbourne airport where they could arrange to get on other flights. And off they went. Meanwhile we Tiger passengers were sitting there wondering. Well, at least I was wondering. I was wondering why Tiger seemed to be going to fly when Jetstar had deemed it too dangerous to take-off. Finally, at the time we were supposed to board the plane, they came out with an announcement saying that the flight was going to be delayed while the captain evaluated the fog and weather. The flight was going to be delayed by 2 hours. I was not impressed with the timeliness of their informing their passengers, but there was nothing to be gained by getting upset at that point. Best to get to my destination before registering my displeasure.
Somewhat later, they came out with a further announcement saying that the flight was being cancelled, they were very sorry, and they would refund the tickets. I waited for a few minutes to let the first rush of unhappy passengers get dealt with before approaching the check-in desk. Meanwhile, I got my bags and listened as the Tiger employee standing at the shuttle bus desk finished a call to the shuttle bus company. She then told everyone that the shuttle bus company had told her that if flights were cancelled, they wouldn't service the airport. They were of the opinion that there was no need. Hmmm... No need? How about all the passengers they had transported to the airport with no other way back to anywhere useful (like downtown Melbourne) aside from taxis. That seemed a bit irresponsible of them and I told the Tiger employee that she should convey that to them. She said she would, she gave us contact information for the bus company, and she suggested that the best way back to town would be to share a taxi to the nearest train station (about 5 to 10 minutes away) and get a train back to town. Great.
Then I headed to the check-in desk to try to deal with my flight to Perth. I wasn't in any rush, I had a ticket booked with them, and I wanted to fly on that ticket if possible, rather than having to mess around with getting a different with another airline. Unfortunately, Tiger was also upgrading their computer systems that day and couldn't reschedule my flight. I was told that I would have to come back to the airport at 4:00 in the morning the next day in order to see if there was any spots on the next day's flight. And it wasn't guaranteed. That didn't sound like the best plan. But she didn't offer any other ideas. They were really starting to show me why they were a budget airline. I gave up and found someone to share a cab with and went back to Melbourne. Now I was going to have to find something to do with myself for at least an extra day, maybe longer depending on how long it took me to sort things out with the airline.
(I did get them on the phone later that day to deal with them. It took about 45 minutes of waiting on hold, but I got confusingly booked onto a flight for four days later, the Sunday. I say confusingly because their phone operators were also unable to access their computer systems because of the system upgrade. So the woman who dealt with me had to take long moments away from the phone to go and have someone put me on the roster for that flight and then fill out some kind of written request to have it be without charge, as the flight on the Sunday was about twice the price. Because the delay had not been my fault, they were not going to charge me, of course, but the process was made more difficult by the fact that their computer systems weren't completely accessible. She told me though that they would send me an itinerary to me when things were sorted out. It was like a perfect storm of problems to leave Melbourne that day.)
So this is what I decided to do. Melbourne is set on the north end of a large bay, called Philip Bay. The central business district (downtown area for those of us from the northern hemisphere) is inland along the Yarra River. One of the outlying communities of Melbourne, St. Kilda, lies along the shore of the bay. I bought a transit day pass and went to have a look.
St. Kilda is an older neighbourhood. It has retained the older buildings and smaller streets that were common way back when. Many of what were houses have been converted into cafes and restaurants and small shops.
Nearby there is an old amusement park, still in operation, with an old wooden roller-coaster. It was just nice to wander through the neighbourhood.
St. Kilda sits on the bay and there is a nice beach that must be quite packed on a warm summer day.
I walked along the beach for a while and reached a pier with a yacht club at the end of it. As I was walking along the pier, this guy with a dog passed by. As the dog passed, it barked and kind of startled me. The man started talking to me and apologized for the dog. He was heading into the yacht club and invited me in. He said I looked like a trustworthy sort. He was heading out on his boat for a race, but I was welcome to look around and take some photos of the boats moored on the docks. I always think that yachts make great photos. Of course, they make great photos when other people take the photos. It never seems to work out for me.
After wandering around the pier for a little bit longer, I headed back to catch a different tram into town. Along a different route there was the Melbourne War Memorial.
It is massive. It sits on top of a hill in a huge park. I was very impressed by the structure.
Underneath is a crypt with plaques for all the campaigns and battles where Australians fought and died.
On the ground floor is a chamber with altars and nice art work.
A stairway leads up to the top of the memorial building and from there one gets a really nice view out over the area.
After that it was back to town to make phone calls to see if I could get out of town any time soon.
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