Got up earlyish and got stuff together for the day before meeting up with Andrew and heading out.
First port of call was a man-shop to buy man-shorts; he'd managed to forget to bring any shorts and we figured it was going to be too warm for jeans. Once shorts were selected and purchased, we stopped in a cafe for some breakfast, admiring the coffee art (pretty pattern created in the milk), then carried along our way to the GP tram stop.
There were visibly more people in town wearing GP related paraphernalia, all heading towards the direction of the tram stop. Despite this, it wasn't too hard to get on the tram, although it was definitely busier than yesterday. We arrived at Gate 2 and headed into Albert Park.
After consulting the map we decided to head towards a hill on corner 5 where we positioned ourselves with a good view of the track and a big screen. It was gloriously sunny, so I enjoyed catching some rays as we waited for the excitement to begin. Again the place was filled with school kids, who were rather noisy and overexcited! The first practice session began and the air was filled with the sound of very fast cars going very fast indeed! They went round comparitbly slowly on their first circuit, then after that they went at an astonshing pace. There was a bit of a crash just short of corner 5 which caused some excitement, but everything else seemed to go smoothly. The school kids all ran around screaming like banshees and trying to chase the cars, which was quite funny to watch!
Once the first practice session was over, there was a display of the Australian Army Blackhawk helicopters which was very good - they danced about in the air like they were as light as feathers. Following that, we gathered our bits together and headed for a bit more of a walk around the track.
We came to another area where we had a mooch around the stands and Andrew tried his hand at the pit stop speed challenge, where you have to change the wheel on a F1 car. He teamed up with a random guy who had already attempted it. They actually did really well - 9.9secs (the current fastest time was 3.8secs but apparently anything below 15secs on a first attempt is really great!).
The sun had gone in and the cloud was starting to sneak its way across, but it remained warmish. We got chatting for a while to 3 guys (Aussie & Kiwi) about the race and different drivers. Then our conversation was halted as the RAAF F/A18 Jet started its display and the sound that it made drowned out everything else. It was pretty impressive as it twisted and turned in the air, turning on itself in a really tight circle. To end the display, it just shot up vertically and kept going until it was no longer visible, hidden by the clouds.
Noticing a distinct dip in temperature, I decided it was a good time to buy my F1 hoodie, which propmtly went on! We then found a patch on corner 10 and settled to watch the second F1 practice session. From this spot we had a better view of the cars as they had to come round the corner and then the next, before heading off along the straight. It started to drizzle very gently which created a bit of a problem for some of the cars.
Ater the F1s, it was the turn of the V8s, but moments into the race, there was a massive smash and the race got red-flagged. That was quite dramatic!
We packed up and headed back to the city on the tram. On the walk back to the hostel I saw some more possums and there was another awesome sunset. We decided a trip to the cinema was in order so once we dumped our stuff and made our way to the Melbourne Museum where we saw Alice In Wonderland in 3D at the IMAX. It was really good and I was very impressed, well worth the wait. On the way back to the hostel, stopped for a quick bit of wifi at Maccas as I was suffering withdrawal.
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