16th-18th March – Melbourne Grand Prix

We flew into Melbourne late on the Friday night and found our rental apartment in the fashionable neighbourhood of St Kilda.

Saturday 16^th dawned bright and we headed to the circuit in Albert Park.  Astute readers will recall that we previously enjoyed driving around the circuit in the off-season in our rental campervan!  This time, access was somewhat more limited! But we joined the throngs and enjoyed perusing the stalls and soaking up the atmosphere. 

There was even a flypast with a F/A18 Hornet fighter jet!

The day was made all the more special by the fact that we got to see family from home! Simon’s brother-in-law, Ken, works for McLaren in the UK and was tasked, pretty last-minute, with flying halfway round the world to deliver some badly needed parts to the F1 race team!  It was pretty surreal to see him, and I expect it was the same for him as his body was in a different time zone and this was his first ever time in Australia! We had a good catch up on the family gossip and enjoyed some cold drinks in the sunshine.  We were jealous of Ken’s ability to access the pit area with his special connections and sadly he was unable to sneak us in! But we got an unexpected bonus – access to a special VIP bar thanks to one of Simon’s work colleagues, which got us right next to the start/finish straight for qualifying.

We enjoyed some extra time with Ken that evening, going out for dinner and drinks in St Kilda before calling it a night to conserve our energy for the big race day.

Sunday 17^th was another scorcher.  The main task for the day was finding the ideal spot from which to watch the race.   

Sebastian Vettel passing us in the drivers' parade

We strolled around the circuit, watching the drivers’ parade until we found a prime spot right on a corner which gave us a wide-angle view of the track from which to watch the race.

It wasn’t the most eventful race, but was an easy win for Bottas! After the race we remained within the Park as the city was looking stunning in the evening sunshine (below) and we went for a walk on the track. 

Track walk....

Not wanting the day to end, we crossed the road by the entrance and found some live music in a marquee full of other F1 fans.  That should read other, very merry and drunk F1 fans!  What else could we do but join in?!  I found myself reminiscing about drunken nights in Australia many years previously – the musical set-list doesn’t seem to have changed that much through the decades!  We had a great night, letting our hair down with people we will probably never see again and dancing like no one was watching!

Night out after the race!

Monday 18^th March - We had to check out of our apartment the next morning, but our flights weren’t until the early hours of Tuesday!  This gave us the opportunity to meet up with Ken for a lengthy and lovely lunch before he had to bid us farewell to start his mammoth journey back to the UK.  We had a stroll up the river but it was such a hot day, with us carrying luggage, that we opted to keep cool in some bars until it was time the head back to the airport. 

That looks like a good place for lunch....