Melbourne

After a pretty innocuous flight I arrived in Melbourne and called the hostel I planned to stay in to arrange a pickup. I wanted to stay at Habitat HQ in St Kilda and needed a shuttle bus since its on the other side of town. It was late evening as well so I wasn't about to go trying to get there via public transport. I eventually got there and lo and behold but who was there only Jamie! Well it wasn't quite that much of a surprise since I knew she was staying there and she had been make (not so) subtle suggestions that I should do likewise when I got to Melbourne. This way we could hang out over the next few days before her holiday ended and she had to go back home. That evening we just curled up on a couch with some wine in the common room being tired from our travels and made some plans for the days to come. The next day I rose early for the free breakfast and I was heading to the Queen Victoria Markets to help Jamie pick out her souvenirs for folks at home. We spent the whole morning walking around the markets, which are pretty extensive and definitely a good place to buy cheap souvenirs, and got all the bits and pieces needed. This included a didgeridoo which was a birthday present for her brother which we then visited a post office to send home. All the shopping done it was time for some lunch in a cute little cafe of which Melbourne is bursting. Then we took a stroll around Federation Square which is the main arty/touristy area in the city. There are a few parks there along the river too so we took a wander down there as well. Its all very picturesque and chic and made for a nice afternoon stroll. We stopped at a bar on the river and had a few drinks and talked the evening away. Then it was back to the hostel to cook up some food and watch a movie.


The following day we did different things. She was heading off on a Neighbours tour in the morning and meeting up with the two Irish girls off Condor for dinner and a girly chat. So not my kind of gig then. I went to an AFL game instead with a few people from the hostel. It was a good group and we got on pretty well and had a laugh. The match itself was a grudge match between Collingwood Magpies and Carlton Blues in the MCG Arena. This place holds about 80000 and was almost full. Its also spherical in shape. A pitch in Australian Rules is called an oval but its really a circle. The game itself is an odd one if you haven't seen it before but basically involves lots of kicking and catching but strangely not a lot of tackles. I was expecting to see crushing tackles but it was all a bit tame really. It seems to be an odd mash up of rugby and GAA. This particular game probably wasn't the best to introduce me to the sport as it was quite one sided. Collingwood made bits of Carlton and only for they switched off in the last quarter and let Carlton make the final scoreline a bit more respectable then they would have won by a country mile. But our group had a great laugh and we went back to the hostel fast friends. Once I got something to eat in the hostel I abandoned my new buddies to meet up with the three girls in the city centre. They had gone for a meal and I met them in the restaurant where they had been since 4pm drinking wine. It was close to 10pm when I got there so they were pretty smashed. I was sober as a judge so it was quite entertaining for me. We moved onto a bar for another few drinks but it wasn't long before we (I) decided it was best if the lot of them got to bed. Bloody drunks :)


The next day was Jamie’s last in the land of Oz as well as Karen and Liana’s (2 Irish girls). We had lunch together since breakfast was a big no no considering the drunken messes they all were the previous night. They claimed it was because of checkout times in the hostels but I knew better. Anyway we had a pleasant lunch and we all said our goodbyes. Jamie was heading from our hostel (the other two had been staying in the city centre somewhere) so I said goodbye to her a little later than the other two. I was pretty upset to see her go but all good things come to an end and we both intended to keep in touch after she got back so I’d live. Plus we had talked with the other two about arranging a reunion back in the northern hemisphere so we would see each other again in the not too distant future no doubt. I spent the rest of the evening with the gang from the footy game and we all got merrily drunk on very cheap wine and a bit of goon. We followed this up the next day with a trip into town to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens and Melbourne Zoo. We had a very weird, random but ultimately hilarious day. We began well by getting lost and walking onto the grounds of a school much to the amusement of the kids playing football. After this slight detour we worked our way to the Botanical Gardens and looked at all the pretty flowers, trees and lakes. As Caitlin (American girl) had a savage camera she was the resident photographer for the day and we had lots of fun with some crazy pictures. These would include the band pose in one and all of us seated on a different bench in another. For some reason whoever had put the benches in the park hadn't gone to too much trouble about where they went, hence you had a few odd placements like facing a big tree from 3 feet away…. Much faffing about later we found our way into the city and figured out which tram we needed to get to the zoo. Oh yeah the trams! Melbourne is full of them and they are the cheapest and easiest way to get about. They are also remarkably unpoliced so mostly they were free (ahem). They’re not really like the Luas except for the newer versions but the concept is the same. Anyway we got to the zoo late in the afternoon so we didn’t have much time to see the stuff we wanted to see but managed to fit in monkeys, koalas, roos and lions among others. The lions were cool as the males were roaring at each other when we passed their enclosure. Pretty cool to hear that up close but not too close! We finished the day off with a trip to Chinatown for dinner and some drinkage back at the hostel. Much merriment was had by all!

The following day I moved out of Habitat (with a heavy heart) and moved around the corner to a place called Home Travellers Motel where I would be working 2 hours a day for my nights accommodation. I was starting to think about New Zealand and the things I wanted to do there so I needed to curb my spending a little bit. So I spent a week there doing odd jobs and generally having uneventful days. Every now and again I would meet up with the gang back at Habitat and we would do something together. We had a few nights out which were good fun and sometimes I just went up there to chill. My new hostel had a decidedly worker feel to it and most of the people there were in it for a few months and all new each other so I felt a little bit of an outsider. Luckily I had the boys and girls from Habitat (Mike, Julie and Caitlin) to turn to in my times of boredom. One of the days I went into the city with Mike from NY and we visited the markets and took a trip up Eureka Tower. This is a massive tower the top of which has incredible views of Melbourne and the surrounding countryside. On another occasion I went to St Kilda pier to see the little penguins that live there and come out at night. They are tiny and impossible to get a pic of because you aren’t allowed to use flash. Other than these events I laid low and kept my cash in my wallet. I still enjoyed Melbourne and think it’s a pretty cool place, probably better than Sydney. Everything to this point had been going overbudget so I needed to be practical and keep my debts to a minimum on returning home. Gotta leave something for NZ!