57. Things to do in AUSTRALIA - Melbourne's Botanic Gardens, the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, Yarra River, a bike tour and eat gelato!

WEBVTT

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Johnny Man, I can travel is
back. I saw that Australia is doing

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a big marketing push that they're reopened
for business and they want you to come

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see them. And I think back
fondly on my trip from December twenty fifteen

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to Australia, and what I thought
I'd do here for the next couple of

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weeks is I'm just going to go
through my photo albums and see what memories

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come back to me as I help
you plan your trip to Australia. We

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went over Christmas break for the kids, so school wrapped up like Friday,

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December seventeenth or whatever, and then
we jumped on the plane and we're gone

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through New Year's. If you're going
to go that far, you kind of

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have to go for two weeks.
This is not a four day trip.

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This is a major commitment. Before
I left, I asked my friend Mark

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Francis. He hosts the Palace Intrigue
podcast and he grew up in Adelaide,

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Australia, and I asked him about
the flight and he described it to me

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correctly as such, Well, you
get on the plane and you watch a

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movie, and then you watch another
movie, and then you eat and then

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you take an eight hour nap and
then you wake up and you watch another

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movie and there's still eight hours left. Yeah, the flight is really tough.

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We did a six hour flight to
la I guess it was five and

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a half whatever it is to la
and then our flight got in late and

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we had to sprint to the plane
to go the rest of the way,

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so we didn't even get a break
at Lax and then it's another I don't

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know what it was at sixteen hours. It's something like that. I remember

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we took off on December eighteenth and
did not have a December nineteenth because of

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the way the International date line works. We were just in the air and

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kind of missed it. So we
took off on the eighteenth and landed on

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the twentieth. Now, coming back
you get some time back. But we

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first went to Milbourne. My entire
trip was Milbourne, and then we went

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up to the Great Barrier Reef,
and then we finished up in Sydney on

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New Year's Eve, which was amazing. We'll get there. Let's start with

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Milbourne. I loved Milbourne. Market
told me it is the most European of

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the cities and had compared it to
the London of Australia, where Sydney is

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more of the New York of Australia, or maybe the la of Australia.

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We'll get there. But Melbourne was
fantastic. I absolutely fell in love with

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Melbourne. I'm looking here at the
Flinders Street rail station, which is this

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this big, majestic building right in
the center of town. We got around

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on trolleys. They have a trolley
system street rail system that if you're in

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the central Business district, which is
where you're going to be, it's hop

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on, hop off, So it's
really fantastic. The first place we went

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to on day one after we landed, we walked over to the Botanic Gardens.

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Oh my goodness, these were beautiful. I absolutely fell in love with

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it and I have I'm going through
here. I took eight billion pictures of

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it. And in the middle of
the city, I guess would be sort

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of akin to having Central Park in
the middle of Manhattan, or maybe more

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like something you would see in London, but you totally forget that you're in

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the middle of downtown Melbourne. Are
close to downtown Melbourne, I mean it

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is right there. We walked right
over. I'm looking at a sign here.

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I took a picture of it.
In the Botanic gardens is a is

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called Long Island, No, not
the one that I'm from, a different

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one, but I took a picture
of it. I'm being mesmerized here by

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these photos that I haven't looked at
in a couple of years. Just everything

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lush and green and colorful. Oh, and I'm so happy I have this

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here. So the thing we did
on day two is we took a bike

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tour with this guy Murray, and
I apparently had taken a screen shot of

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the itinerary. I'm so excited.
I didn't intend to do this. Let

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me tell you about this city tour. With real Melbourne bike tours, you'll

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see more in a few hours than
most see in and then it's cut off.

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You'll explore Melbourne's groovy of streets,
parks, shops, cafes, hidden

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laneways and neighborhoods. Learn why Melbourne
streets are lined with lava. Trip includes

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a bike, higher, a helmet, coffee and cakes and little Italy.

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Yep, we did that lunch meet
up at nine forty five. We'll go

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out at ten o'clock. Return time
at two pm, So four hours on

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a bike our guide was Murray.
Murray was awesome. I had actually booked

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all this through Quantis, which I
thought they did an excellent job. I

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would use them again. I recommend
you use them. So here I'm looking

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at photos from the bike tour as
we just rode through these beautiful streets.

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Here's a gorgeous street trolley going to
Flinders. Here's a picture of the Macas.

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You Yanks know it as McDonald's and
your place of residence, but there

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was a Macas. I remember one
time the kids they wanted to eat there,

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and I'm like, we came all
the way to Australia, please don't

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eat the McDonald's. But like I
gave in for like one meal just to

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keep them happy. I see down
the block from the Macus is a Hungry

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Jack's, which is Australian for burger
king. There's this whole thing where they

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didn't get the rights of the name
burger king, so Hungry Jacks is burger

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king and most McDonald's are McDonald's,
but this one in Melbourne is a Macus

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m accas. Here's a picture of
me with my bike helmet on and off

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we go. Murray took us over
to the world famous Melbourne Cricket Ground.

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You know, it's like Yankee Stadium
for Australia. A really cool plays a

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lot of big sporting events are there. Saw some people doing cricket practice.

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I forgot about this. There's a
park dedicated to John F. Kennedy.

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I remember that was pretty We spent
some time there on the bike tour.

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Here's the Princess Theater where there was
a showing a fiddler on the roof.

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I know, one night, we'll
talk about it. My family went to

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see a theater show. I want
to call it a Broadway show, but

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this is Australia, you know what
I mean. And my son and I

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went out for pizza. Some beautiful
churches here. Murray took us to get

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some gelato. I remember this gelato
place was on one of the side streets.

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It was so good. Here's me
eating a cone. Remember two.

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There was a burrito place that had
like a skating rink. It was like

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a storefront with a skating rink in
it, but you could get burritos there

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too. I would love to get
back to that, but that did not

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happen. Melbourne University we took a
ride through then it went out that night

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and it was Christmas time, but
again seasons are opposite, so it's summer.

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I'm walking around in shorts, and
I stumbled across this street projection thing,

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you know when they do the lights
and they make a building like really

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light up, and then they can
make it look like the building is almost

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curving or bending. There was a
Nutcracker themed everything down there at Christmas time

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was It's not Santa Claws and snow, it's Nutcracker themed. And there was

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this light show projecting onto the building
and just one of those things I stumbled

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across, and I'm so glad I
did. It was amazing. We just

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stood there, the kids and I
for like twenty five minutes watching this show,

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all right, And we walked around
some more. The Yarra River is

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really cool, a nice place to
spend some time. Here's a place called

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fight Club, which I guess we're
not supposed to talk about. Ah,

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here's the pizza. So yeah.
The women on the trip went to see

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a quote unquote Broadway show, you
know what I mean. And my son

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and I went to Little Italy and
we got pizza. If I'm remembering correctly,

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and I'm looking at the picture here. This was pineapple and Bacon.

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What was that place called it,
It was called Teitos. Then the next

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day we headed over to the Docklands, which is like the new part of

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town or the part that they're trying
to make nice again, and my daughter

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and I went on the Melbourne Star
previously called the Southern Star, one hundred

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and twenty meter tall observation wheel in
the Docklands area. This is kind of

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like the big ferris wheel in London, a ride which is one complete rotation.

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It took thirty minutes. I'm using
past tense because the wheel closed in

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September twenty twenty one. Not sure
if they're going to take it down or

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if they'll reopen someday, but at
the time of this recording it is no

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more. You cannot do it.
It is an ex wheel. But boy

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it was really cool and we got
a great view and there was nobody there

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the day we went, so my
daughter and I had an entire car to

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ourselves, so we just got to
walk around and calmly take it all in.

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It was really amazing. Also in
that area were some outlets and I

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like wearing things for like random sporting
teams and we did carry onst to Australia

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because Dad meeting me is crazy and
doesn't like check in bags, so we

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all did carry Onst Australia for two
weeks. Good job family. If I

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had more luggage, I would have
bought so much random Australian soccer where cricket

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stuff in this sporting goods outlet store. About one thing I did buy is

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a Saint Killed a Saint's hoodie that
when I wear, anybody who knows what

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it is always comes up and talks
to me and asks me about it.

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That's an Australian football team in St
Kilda, which is not too far from

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Melbourne proper. Anyway, the outlet
store was really cool and the wheel was

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also cool. On our trip to
Melbourne, we did a side trip.

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Here I'm looking at an animal sanctuary
of sorts where we went to go see

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the kangaroos, and I've got pictures
of here's me with the kangaroo. Here's

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my son chilling out with kangaroo next
to him. Pretty funny. Nice picture

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of an emu or something sneaking up
behind my daughter who's taking a selfie with

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the bird. Here's me in a
nice pony is my daughter feeding the kangaroos.

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Here's me feeding the kangaroos. I
love the kangaroos. Okay. Then

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at night we went to go see
the penguins march in from the ocean.

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They apparently do this every single night. And you go and we took a

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nice long bus ride along the Melbourne
coast. It's some nice beach towns.

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Got more gelato, by the way, Australia's got gelato game. If you

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like gelato, Australia, man,
so here we go. I took a

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picture. Cow's a jetty is where
we stopped for the gelato. If you

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ever find yourself in Cow's Jetty,
get some gelato, my friend. Beautiful

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beach there that love to spend some
more time on. You know, no

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one of those places that I got
ten minutes in, but absolutely love it.

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Here's pictures of the family out on
the pier. So you get out

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of the water and you stay in
the protected area and they have all the

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lights off, and you wait the
sunsets and the penguins come in from the

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sea and they march right past you. And you're not supposed to take flash

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photography idiots, and you just calmly
watch them and they walk past you,

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and they go off into the sand
dunes whatever they do all night. It

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is just amazing to watch the penguins
come in off the sea. Should also

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mention that we stayed in Chinatown and
got some good Chinese food in Chinatown.

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Look at a world map, China's
a lot closer to Melbourne than it is

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to where you live. Well,
I don't know where you live. I'm

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guessing you live in the States.
That was Melbourne. I love Milbourne.

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I would move to Melbourne. Often
ranked the greatest city in the world to

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live, or whatever that poll is
called. But you should go to Melbourne

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next time. Well up to Port
Douglas and Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

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and how I think I caught the
last five minutes of it before it got

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bleached. But that's the story for
next week. You can follow this show

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for free on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
wherever you get your shows. All right,

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