Where Was I?

When I flew across the country and landed in Melbourne, I was able to exhale. Up to this point, I had been moving from city to city without spending more than a few days in one place.  But, once I arrived in Melbourne, I knew I would be spending a few weeks in this first-rate Australian city.  

I knew I wanted to be in Australia for its summer months (January and February), but I specifically wanted to be in Melbourne during these weeks in January for a few special events.  

The Best Thing I Saw in Melbourne

Great Ocean Road 

Twelve Apostles View

Twelve Apostles View

The Twelve Apostles, one of the most famous stops along the Great Ocean Road, could have been the most picturesque setting of anywhere I went over the year of travel.  It may be cheating to use this as ‘Best Thing I Saw in Melbourne’ because it’s about a four hour drive and 175 miles from the city, but the fun part about writing your own blog is making up the rules. 

Like many previous posts, it’s hard to use the right words or even show pictures that would do justice for this view.  The limestone cliffs, the beautiful colors of the water, the crashing waves into the rocks…  It was definitely worth the journey out there. 

Twelve Apostles Sign

Twelve Apostles View

Great Ocean Road

Great Ocean Road

Other Highlights 

Australian Open

Sugar reading at Australian Open

I wrote above how I wanted to be in Melbourne during this time of year for a few events.  This was one of them.  

The Australian Open, one of tennis’ four majors, had always been an event I wished to attend.  Growing up and spending most of my life in the northeast of the United States, the middle of January was always cold and dreary.  Watching tennis in the middle of the night (16 hour time difference) on the other side of the world, where the weather always seemed beautiful, made me jealous every winter.  So, walking into Rod Laver Arena for the first time felt a little surreal. 

Rod Laver Arena

I had very little planned during my first week in Melbourne while the tennis tournament was taking place and I had an Airbnb about a 15 minute walk from the grounds.   I would wake up each day, check the weather and then decide if I would walk over and get a grounds pass for the day.  I got to see a few great matches of the young American, Frances Tiafoe, who actually upset some of the higher ranked players and reached the quarterfinals.  A few of the days I bought center court tickets to watch Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, two of the best to ever play the sport.    

This was such a change of pace from what I had been doing the previous few weeks so it was nice to relax and enjoy some tennis.  

Roger Federer

Roger Federer Wins

Frances Tiafoe Serves

Frances Tiafoe v Grigor Dimitrov

Rafael Nadal v Frances Tiafoe

Aussie Millions 

Aussie Millions

The other event that was taking place over these couple of weeks was the Aussie Millions Poker Championship, one of the biggest poker tournaments in the world.  I had not been able to play too much poker up to this point of the trip and this was an event I had also always dreamed about playing so the timing worked out well. 

After watching tennis during many of the days, I would spend the nights here at Crown Casino to play in the Aussie Millions events and even won a satellite into the 10k main event, which was the biggest event I had ever played.   

Yarra Valley Wine Tour

Yarra Valley Sugar Reading

The Yarra Valley was home to some of Australia’s best tasting wines and while the city of Melbourne had so much to do, it was nice to get outside the city and see a different part of Victoria.   

Punt Road Wine

Yarra Valley Winery

Mumford & Sons Concert

Mumford & Sons Live in Melbourne

This was another case of good timing as I was able to catch a live performance of one of the most popular bands in the world, Mumford & Sons, playing in a park just minutes away from my Airbnb.  I actually found a ticket about 10 rows back from the stage just before the show and bought it on my phone while waiting near the back of the crowd so I could move down closer, which was how I ended up where I did. 

Me in the crowd

Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne 

Botanical Gardens

This was one of the nicer botanical gardens that I came across and it made for a great walk when the weather was nice.  It was an easy walk from my Airbnb and I was able to walk through a few times during my stay in Melbourne. 

Botanical Gardens

Phillip Island (Penguin Parade)

Phillip Island

A day trip to Phillip Island was also one of the more popular destinations from Melbourne.  The scenery from the island was amazing and despite most people visiting for the famous penguin parade, I actually found the views from here to be more enjoyable. 

The penguin parade may be better on different nights, but the night I saw them there were just a few penguins and it was pretty underwhelming. 

Phillip Island

No pictures were allowed of penguins

Brighton Bathing Boxes

Brighton Bathing Boxes

I knew I’d be spending a lot more time at the beaches in Sydney which would be my next stop, so I didn’t see too many of the beaches around Melbourne.   However, I did walk one day to Brighton Beach, which was home to the famous Brighton Bathing Boxes.  Almost everyone in Melbourne had pictures at these boxes, so I had to go see it for myself.  They were nice and made for some cool pictures.  

Brighton Bathing Boxes

The weeks in Melbourne were much slower paced than the previous months of my travels and that was probably a good thing.  These were some of the highlights, but much of the time there I spent sitting at cafes, walking around parks and different neighborhoods, and was simply enjoying the lifestyle.  

The Sugars

Highest high: 353

Lowest low: 53

Avg Morning: 135

Avg Afternoon: 138

Avg Night: 131

Insulin Pods: 6

Avg Basal Rate: 1.10

Emergency sugar supply: Skittles, glucose tablets, energy drinks, M&Ms

Insulin reading on the Great Ocean Road

Melbourne was one of my longest stays during this year of travel and that allowed much of my diabetic concerns to be at ease for this leg of the trip.  Before Melbourne, my week of travel through Western Australia had me searching for refrigerators at each hostel site and then reloading my insulin in Frio bags every morning before we would leave for the next stop.  Now that I had a base for a couple of weeks, I was able to store all of my insulin and supplies in one place and didn’t have to worry about it each day.  

At the Mumford concert, there was a strict no bag policy, which I normally can bypass with a medical exemption, but in this case I decided I would wear shorts with deep pockets and pack all my supplies into my shorts.  It didn’t cause too much of an inconvenience although I prefer to have a bag with me.  This would come up again at a few other places and when in a foreign country, it’s not always as easy to explain the need to carry a diabetic bag.  

The days I played poker I would turn my basal rate up on my Omnipod from 1.10/u per hour to 1.20/u per hour.  It may not seem like a big difference, but it actually did make quite an impact on my sugar levels.  When I would be sitting at a poker table all day, I would take in more insulin per hour because I wasn’t getting as much exercise.  I changed my basal rate often depending on my activity level and my food intake, and this would be something I would need to consider with everything I did. 

Melbourne was a great stop and a city I would love to return to someday.  I actually made a last minute decision and decided that before I would head to Sydney, I would make a brief stop in Tasmania to continue my travels through Australia.    

Keep the sugar levels steady. 

Jeremy

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