The big day loomed large and excitement mounted at the prospect of today's qualifying session and the chance to see who is likely to strike the first blow in the bid for this year's championship.
But first, we thought we'd take a look at St Kilda beach, as it's so close. Sounds like a plan, think you can easily have too much racing over four days, so we were looking forward to a change of scenery before proceeding to the track for the qualifying. But we wake to very un-beachside skies and by the time we are up and about, light rain has taken hold. Dang. So we change plan and head for Melbourne city proper on the tram. This reminds me of a quaint 80's Aussie film entitled 'Malcolm' in which a dim-witted Melbourne tram worker loses his job for building his own little tram, has to take in a crim lodger and ends up building a car that splits into two and holding up banks by remote control....
Melbourne city turns out to be a fine place, we stroll around for an hour or so, along Flinders Street to Federation Square, down to the river and through a Malaysian food festival where we munch delicious chicken satay and on to lunch in DeGraves Street. The weather breaks and the sun shines so we decide to head back to the circuit, which turns out to be far, far closer than we expected, and we are soon bathed in sun on the Clark grandstand at turn 9 for the final practice. 12 minutes in and it's properly chucking it down with rain. Not at all nice when you are in shorts...... Despite the rain the f1 guys come back out for a splash about. There's a few offs, but nothing serious. The session finishes but the rain continues and the v8s dawdle about for 12 uneventful laps. The weather worsens and we have a quandary. We can stay in our sodden state and hope they don't call the qualy on us, or we can go home where it doesn't matter if they do.
We choose the middle ground and head back towards turn 14, where we could, in theory, watch the cars from a general admission area. As the weather improves a little, this looks like a good plan and we are cheered by the presence of the awesome RAAF FA18 fighter which is flying VERY low over the circuit. These monsters make the F1 cars look like Honda Jazz's out on a shopping run. We make it to our chosen turn and the weather worsens yet again. Philip and Jez call the day and head off home, we decide to stay and tuff it out. They announce a further delay and we are five minutes behind Phil and Jez on our way home. We arrive home absolutely cloaked and dejected but are cheered by the end result, watched by us on TV, of just Q1 being run, cars going off all over the place and the rest of the session postponed until tomorrow morning. The boys assume their role of hunters and bugger off up the shop to collect tea. We come back, freshly soaked after a further downpour......
So here we are 8:45 Saturday night, almost at the close of our first week in Oz. So far, so good. I've not been hit by a tram or eaten by a dangerous animal, or claimed by a crazed serial killer who feasts on English tourists. Aside from today we've had good weather, good food and I've yet to get blind drunk, which is going some in Phil and Jez's company.... Wayne's still talking to me, and all I've managed to lose so far is my headphones pouch . All in all life is good out here in Oz, I'm chilled and for once feel in fairly good form. Tomorrow is the Grand Prix at long last, and Monday we embark upon our camper adventure up the east coast back to Sydney, taking in Philip Island to go see the penguins. Hopefully I can keep my words up and Wayne will still be talking to me by the time we get back; I'll settle for not being buried at the side of the road after a night of excessive snoring on my part, with Wayne returning to civilisation alone, claiming I was taken by dingos in the night......
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