Day 75-76: Two Aussie Traditions – The Outdoors, and Sports
Australia is known for two things internationally (I would
have to admit that it is known for more than two things, but that doesn’t fit
the narrative of this diary entry as well), its outdoors and its sport-loving
culture. I experienced both areas of Australian lifestyle in their Melbourne
vintage these past two days. First, was a trip up high among the Dandenong
Hills, where I did what I would call outdoors exploring (what other more
physically able Australians would call a leisurely stroll among the trees and
nature), and second was a trip down to the hub of Australian sports, the MCG
and the Melbourne Tennis Center, capped off with a cherry on the sundae of a
Footy game. Yeah, after those experiences, I’m basically Australian now.
I awoke on Thursday not really knowing what to do, as I had
finished most of my points on the checklist as far as inside Melbourne City
Limits was concerned, and the two I had yet to finish were scheduled to take
place on Friday. Still, because my Aunt and Uncle generously took a day off to
be with me, I couldn’t sit at home and twiddle my thumbs. Of course, even if
they hadn’t, I wouldn’t sit at home and twiddle my thumbs, but I probably would
do the urban equivalent: walk around aimlessly in Melbourne and have a brew or
five. No, we had to do something, so I offered up the idea of going on a trip
to the Dandenongs, a national park area about an hour outside of Melbourne,
full with nature trails and more realistic nature walks and a view of the
greater Melbourne Area unmatched anywhere
other than maybe the top of the Eureka Tower.
Just like Lisa’s trip to the US made me do things in New
York that I hadn’t really ever done before, like take the Staten Island Ferry,
or go to the Top of the Rock, I was making my Aunt and Uncle do things they had
rarely done before. They actually took my cousin Ian on a similar trip to the
Dandenongs observatory area, named Sky High Mount Dandenong, but since that was
under similar circumstances as this visit, my larger point still holds.
The one thing I noticed on our drive over to the Dandenongs
National Park was how well maintained and well groomed the freeways in
Melbourne are. All the major roads are lined with perfectly gardened trees and
shrubs, giving a supremely green vibe to anyone who drives to or through the
city. When I compare this to the sound barriers, cylindrical oil containers,
shipping docks and Linden Cogeneration Plant that lines the New Jersey
Turnpike, I realize that that particular comparison isn’t really worth
discussing.
Dandenongs National Park is up in the hills, and the winding
drive up to Sky High reminded me a lot of the drive up the hills in Dalat. Now,
because this is Australia, it is cleaner, but the rows of farms underneath were
unmistakably similar to Dalat. We reached Sky High in decent time, ready to
have a celebratory coffee (or in my case, milkshake) at the restaurant at the
top. There, we witnessed a large group of (really) old people from an aged home
doing the same thing we were doing: just watch the world go by high above a
Melbourne suburb under perfect weather conditions. We took some pictures at the
top, capturing the wide expanse of farmland and open plains that occupy the
space between Melbourne and Mt. Dandenong, with Melbourne off in the
haze-covered distance.
Soon, we descended from the top of Mt. Dandenong off to the National Rhododendron Gardens, a pristine little natural flower and tree reserve deep inside the Dandenongs National Park. Since it was offseason, the flowers weren’t blooming, but the trees more than made up for it. The entrance to the Park is shaded by massive trees that tower overhead, with slits of sunlight filtering down through the tree branches. They had a couple lakes and ponds that were bounded by trees of all colors (random great fact about Melbourne: the presence of fall colors during their fall). Some of the picturesque beauty was lost during the slightly treacherous uphill walk back to the car, but as someone who sat on my ass much of my time in India, any exercise was happily accepted (at least when I was done with the climb).
When we finished with the National Rhododendron Park, we
headed back to Melbourne proper to pick up Gavan and jet off quickly to Crown,
the Casino in the heart of Melbourne flanking the South side of the Yarra
River. Walking distance from her work, Lisa met us there at the casino. I admit
now that I left off one last love of Australians: gambling. I’ll talk about
this more when I get to the stadium tours tomorrow, because it’s the sports
betting that is ridiculous, but it was fun to go to the Melbourne Casino, a
large glistening compound that opens up on to the Southbank promenade.
I eschewed actually trying my luck after my ridiculous
experience at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, but still got a good vibe of
what was going on. Being offseason and a weekday and not all that late, the
casino floor was largely empty other than the familiar face of the aging
spending their money (a sight not lost to anyone who’s been to Atlantic City),
and the more familiar faces of Asians. Crown is a giant complex fit with a
large shopping mall area, three hotel towers and a slew of restaurants of all
different cuisines. These restaurants, much like those that lined the Port
Melbourne walk, have changed hands and names often, probably due to the high
rent and higher, oppressive prices of food, and similarly, the restaurant my
Aunt and Uncle were planning to go to was closed for 6 months for renovation.
Instead, we went to Mr. Hive’s Kitchen & Bar, a stylish restaurant off in
one of the hotel towers of Crown.
Mr. Hive’s was a large restaurant, decorated well to give
off a modern look. Their menu, while not expansive, read delicious, and from my
food and the reaction of my family, tasted as delicious. We first ordered two
sets of bread to start, and I was slightly amused at my Australian family not
really knowing what cornbread was. I ordered my first Australian Steak, a
Flat-Iron steak where I acquiesced to our waitresses request and got it done
medium-rare. The waitress of a strange accent (some though Canadian, some
thought American, some – me – though European) was absolutely right. The steak was cooked
perfectly, and despite looking small, was extremely filling. While not being
one of the restaurants lining the waterfront on one end of the Crown complex,
Mr. Hive’s was a total hit. We returned home after that as I refused to lose
more of my money playing a different type of Hold ‘Em than I’m used to, and
called it a night.
My cousin Gavan loves sports. I don’t know if it’s to an
extent that matches or exceeds mine or not, but it is close. Footy is his real
passion (like Football is mine), with Cricket and close 2nd (like
Hockey being mine). So it made perfect sense for him to accompany me on my
visit to the Melbourne Tennis Center – namely, the tour of Rod Laver Arena –
and the Melbourne Cricket Ground (which happens to, because of the season, be
the Melbourne Cricket Ground of Aussie Rules Football). Stadium tours are
largely an international thing, and I’ve been on a few, and while the Rod Laver
Arena tour didn’t match the wonderful Wimbledon tour, the MCG tour came close
to the tour of the Santiago Bernebeu in Madrid, and if I take away my
connection to Madrid and the staggering history of that stadium, it probably
exceeded it.
There were only four of us (including Gavan and myself) on
the Rod Laver tour, which made it a more intimate, but slightly more maddening
tour. Intimate because we got to know the other members, a nice couple from
Edmonton who I had a little hockey chat with, and the guide, a funny member of
Tennis Australia, well. Maddening because a large part of the tour was having a
long tennis history discussion in the Wall of Champions that while entertaining
probably wouldn’t have happened in a larger group. The tour meets deep inside
Rod Laver Arena, known most notably as the first retractable roof tennis
stadium in one of the four majors, or alternatively as the place of Roger
Federer’s sad tear-filled meltdown after losing the 2009 Australian Open Final
to Rafael Nadal.
Our first stop on the tour was to Male Dressing Room A, a
large room fit with rows of lockers and showers and doors leading to various
training areas, used primarily by the seeded players during the tournament.
From there, we headed down the hallway the players head down when they head to
the court, past the screen where they are interviewed prematch, and down the
wall of champions. Since the length of the hallway is limited, the posters of
the Champions start around 1970, but still includes most of the greats. What
comes to mind first is the random nature of the Men’s winners. As some tennis
fans know, some of the top players skipped the Aussie Open way back when
because of travel costs and lack of prize money and, at the time, lack of
prestige. The most notable was Bjorn Borg. That allowed for some truly random
guys to win. The other thing was the dominance of certain women, like Margeret
Smith Court (10 titles), and Evert and Navratilova. My favorite part was seeing
the Safin poster, showcasing him mid-backhand during his triumphant 2005 Oz
Open run, and the last three panels of Nadal (2009), Federer (2004, 2006, 2007,
2010) and Djokovic (2008, 2011, 2012, 2013), which are, fittingly, separated
from the earlier panels by a door, as to say that these three are just a cut
above the other recent champions (Safin, Johannson, Kafelnikov).
From there, we headed up to a box to see the stadium. When
the Rod Laver Arena isn’t used to host tennis (in effect, about 50 weeks of the
year), it hosts concerts, and to protect the Plexicushion surface, the roof is
closed and the court covered with gray tarp. Basically, what this all means is
that the stadium is unrecognizable to a tennis fan when the tournament isn’t
going on. The blue and green seats are, and the general outlay of the stadium
is, but it appears so much smaller than what it looks like on TV, and what most
stadiums that seat 15,000 people are. This is a good and bad thing. Obviously,
compared to other stadiums, it looks small and unimpressive, but the fact that
it is so intimate yet seats 15,000 and is riotously loud during the late night
matches makes it such a great tournament.
After our tour of the box, we headed down to the media room,
where I was able to sit behind the podium that Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer,
Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova all stood. As someone who’s watched a lot
of tennis interviews, I tried to put on my most stoic face for the picture
behind the podium, in pure Federer style. The Rod Laver tour ended after that
visit, but Gavan and I continued the tour outside Laver. The outer courts are
kept open the rest of the year for anyone to play, the best of which is Court 3
(the 4th largest show court), which seats about 500 around the clean
blue surface. I was lucky enough to come there right as the two girls hitting
on the court took a break, so I sauntered on down to the court, stood on an
Australian Open plexi-cushion court (honestly, can’t tell the difference
between that and regular hard courts). It was a great way to cap off the
Australian Tennis Center.
After the Rod Laver Tour ended we headed over across the
skybridge to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a staggeringly big building, that
seats roughly 95,000. They give 75-minute tours every half hour, and our 1:00
tour had a group of 10, so I have to assume the Melbourne Cricket Ground is a
really popular tourist attraction. Our tour was headed by a lively old bloke
about 75, a volunteer guide who is a member of the prestigious Melbourne
Cricket Club, of which there are 120,000 members, and a waiting list of over
200,000. The Melbourne Cricket Ground tour is really, really good. I’ve already
mentioned that it probably equals the tour of the Santiago Bernabeu. The tour
led us to seats on the ground level, on the pitch side benches (and within
touching distance of the actual field), to the dressing rooms, which were
particularly drab considering the prestige of the building, and then a long
tour of the Melbourne Cricket Club area itself.
The Melbourne Cricket Club is housed within a large area of
the MCG, and it is a complex of uppity (in a very good way) rooms and exhibits
that a club of its prestige and age should have. First was the Club Dining Room
and Long Room Bar, two rooms that require full membership (which not all of the
120,000 members have) and a full suit and tie. Next was the members dining
room, which only requires a collared
shirt. There was a really well done commissioned painting of the events taken
place in the MCG over its 150 year history, from the first Footy game played by
aboriginals to a small portrait of the modern Australian Cricket Dynasty. This
place is basically the Australian version of Wimbledon, a pantheon of legends
and sporting mythology, and walking through its halls you can almost hear the
walls telling the stories of the great moments taken place on that oval.
Enough smooth talk, the cherry on the sundae was here. On
Friday Night, with all the nation (or some of the nation – as Footy is largely
a Victorian and Western Australian game) watching, Essendon – the team my
cousins feverishly support – was playing Geelong, a matchup of two 6-0 teams.
No team has ever gone undefeated. They weren’t able to tell me if there had
been a matchup this late in the season of undefeated teams, so I’m not sure if
this is a Super Bowl 41.5 type game, but the pre-game hype was large. The game
was played at the Etihad Stadium, seating about 55,000, and the game was
quickly sold out. We went to the Etihad by train, and despite the fact that
this was a Geelong home game, Essendon’s more sizable fanbase filled about 40%
of the stadium.
The game started quickly for Essendon, but slowly but surely
the pre-game favorite Geelong took control, coming back from 44-23 down to take
a 49-45 lead right before the half. They then gorged the lead up the 36, before
Essendon regained some sense of respect cutting the final margin to under 30 by
the time the game was done. Obviously, the result was saddening to Gavan and
Lisa, and therefore me too, but the atmosphere at the game was intense. Almost
all of the crowd stayed for the entire game, including everyone near us in the
lower section. A game of that margin late would have been emptied out by the
middle of the 4th Quarter in the US as people attempt to beat the
traffic, but here, the game is more important than a long commute back.
There were a couple of big takeaways from my experience at
the Footy game. First, was that the crowds are a hoot. They serve alcohol throughout
the game (unlike the US, they don’t stop serving after half-time or the 3rd
Quarter break), and while the crowd isn’t rowdy, it is great fun. There was a
highly inebriated fellow sitting next to Lisa, and while he was constantly
yelling crap for the first quarter, as he sobered up he smarted up and his
retorts became more funny, including yelling to a Geelong fan who was missing a
tooth that, “all of you guys don’t have teeth, huh?”. There was also a slightly
buzzed husband and wife who were screaming and giving play-by-play that
bordered to inane blabber by the end. There were Geelong fans dancing for every
one of their goals during their second half run. And of course, the game ended
with the celebratory song of the winning team, as all Footy games do.
The Footy game, apart from the result, was everything I
hoped. The crowd was energized and engaged. The game was fast and followable
from our lower-deck seats. During the MCG tour, the wily old guide mentioned
that Melbourne is the sporting capital of the world. With two major Footy
stadiums (and nearly half of the Footy teams in the Melbourne area), the
world’s largest Cricket ground, one of the four major Tennis tournaments and an
F1 race, it is kind of hard to argue.
