Not really too much to blog about, except I went to a meeting which was held at the Adelaide Zoo. After talking business for a short while we were given a presentation from one of the Zoo's staff who was responsible for negotiating to have Pandas in Adelaide.

There was so much hype about securing the only two Pandas in the Southern Hemisphere that quite a few people were a bit over the whole thing by the time they actually arrived (myself included).

Now I have an understanding of what it took to get them here, the negotiations with the Communist Government of China, a change in Government in Australia, the global financial crisis & various other constraints. Adelaide should feel very proud to have these two amazing animals.

Of course, we were given a tour of the Panda enclosure at the end & thankfully they were wide awake & walking around. Normally, they are active in the mornings & sleep during the afternoon.

Anyway, lets get to the Panda photos....







The first photo is Funi, the male & the others are of Wang Wang, the potential girlfriend, well, if all goes to plan!

They were a fair bit bigger than I expected & they certainly don't look too huggable. Whilst they now weigh a substantial amount (they put away 20kg of bamboo per day!), they are quite agile moving amongst the rocks & tree branches.

Our guide talked us through a few details but at one point said they are quite easy to tell apart because one looks more Chinese than the other! WTF!?!

 

 

So I did a few mobile phone posts during my trip to Melbourne over the last weekend in March & whilst it was a handy way to blog, they really aren't the greatest photos & since it was such a big weekend, it deserves better treatment.

A couple of months back, a mate called me to say there were some really cheap tickets from Adelaide to Melbourne & back via Tiger Airways. For $100, we could get over for the Australian Grand Prix & the opening match for the AFL. We bought the tickets on the spot with the opinion if we couldn't get accommodation or tickets to the GP, then we really hadn't lost much.

Eventually, we arranged both pit straight grandstand tickets & accommodation in the middle of the city. Even working in the Hotel industry, I couldn't get a better price for a hotel room than through a travel agent which is just crazy!

Up at 4am for our 6:30am flight over, everything ran smoothly, until we ended up in a holding pattern for an hour over Melbourne due to fog. Considering the normal flight takes an hour, a second hour in the air can only be considered good value for money!! (Well, that's what we said to justify the frustration!)

From Tullamarine airport by bus into the city, a quick walk to the hotel & unable to check until later in the day, we left our bags & headed to the Albert Park track. Very few people turn up on the Thursday since the Formula One cars don't go out until the following day. It was a good way to find our way around & see all the other attractions without getting elbowed around.



Once back at the hotel & we checked in to our rooms. My mate ended up with a room on the eighth floor with a view of the building directly across the street. My room however was on the twenty-first floor directly overlooking the Yarra river & beyond. Quite simply the best view from a hotel I've ever seen. Why I scored this room is completely unknown, but I certainly didn't complain.





On Friday, we checked out the Skydeck on the 88th floor of the Eureka building. It's an impressive view from such a height, but I'm a bit miffed as to why the windows on most building lookouts are so reflective!? One woman with a ridiculously expensive camera was taking photos through some huge lenses, all the while using the flash! She's going to be so disappointed. The roulettes just happened to be doing their demonstration over the race track while we were up there too!









Back at the track a little later, the F1 cars finally hit the track as well as the Mini Challenge & the V8's. Highlight of the day though was in the sky. The F18 does it's fly-bys over the pit straight & the rumble of the thing is like a crack of thunder directly injected into the cerebellum! To end the show, it flies straight up until it's out of sight. On this day though, the cloud cover was up so high that the fighter was long out of view until it hit the cloud layer creating a puff of white against the grey cloud. Nothing short of spectacular & the crowd gave a massive cheer when it happened!



Saturday wasn't spent watching cars, instead my mate had a bucks party outside of Melbourne & since he needed a navigator to get to the obscure place it was being held, I went along. There was an epic comedy of errors in just getting the hire car & then missing all the pre-planned directions, but we eventually made it to somewhere in the country for rounds of paint-ball. It's simply not possible to walk away without a bunch of welts & I also discovered the paint doesn't taste too nice either, but it is damn good fun. From there we drove to Sorrento for dinner, getting the Buck dressed in a skimpy Super Girl costume & hitting a few pubs later.

The drive back into Melbourne on Sunday morning was far quicker than the drive the day before. A damn good shower, a feed, a stroll around the city & it was again time to head for Albert Park, this time for the main event. Thankfully, a bit of light rain added to the F1 mayhem & a really good race unfolded. Jenson Button went back to back, Mark Webber had a bit of brain freeze & Micheal Schumacher, well, er, didn't do very well.











From the end of the race back to the Hotel was about twenty-five minutes via Melbourne's incredible tram system. The Casino was next on the agenda & I finally found the poker room after three previous visits.





The flight home was late, maintaining Tiger Airways terrible on-time record & Adelaide was exactly as it was left five days earlier.

There are dozens of stories from what really was an amazing weekend, but if you've got through the above, then you've probably had enough for one blog post, so they'll have to wait!! Plenty more photos on my Flickr account though, so click on any of the above shots.