One of our Aussie Specialists, Josie, has recently returned from a workshop event in Melbourne where she met a number of our local operators and gained some firsthand experience of this vibrant city...Here she shares some of her adventures:
In true Aussie spirit, there was a real sense of ‘work hard play hard’, and our evenings were filled with a host of events at some of the most iconic and prestigious venues in Melbourne.
Flemington Racecourse, home to the famous Melbourne Cup – billed as the ‘race that stops a nation’ – is located six kilometers northwest of Melbourne’s CBD and served as the perfect venue for our ‘Race Night’. It gave us a taste of the colour, flamboyancy and excitement that would be experienced at Melbourne Cup Day on Australia most famous Tuesday of the year in November. The grandstand may not have been filled to its 7000 capacity that it is bursting with in November, but we certainly created our own carnival atmosphere and, as the Melbourne Cup has long been know as an urban fashion parade with oversized hats and magnificent fascinators, we even had our own racetrack fashion parade!
Following the sporting theme, we also donned our nation’s colours and sporting attire for a games night at the Rod Laver Arena located in the Melbourne Park complex. Named in honour of Rod Laver, a three-time winner of the Australian Open and considered one of the world’s greatest tennis players, this is a fantastic sporting icon. The arena may be a venue for the Australian Open Tennis Tournament, but our tournament revolved more around a fancy dress soccer tournament and lots of dancing!
We all know that sport and all things active are at the heart of many Aussies, especially in Melbourne which is known as Australia’s sporting capital. However, there is one more national treasure that Melbourne is famous for (whether it likes it or not!), and that’s Ramsay Street. A lucky few did get to step foot on one of soap land’s most famous streets, but for those of us who didn’t make it to meet the ‘Neighbours’, one of the original stars came to us … in the form of a Kylie Minogue tribute act! So it seemed rather fitting to finish our week of meetings and networking and Aussie experiences with a 500 person strong ‘Locomotion’ – and all of us certainly did feel ‘Lucky Lucky Lucky’!
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