Blogs from Brunswick, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Oceania

This is the starting point of our first overseas trip as a family. Heading to the airport it still seemed unreal. It had been a long time in the planning and called off 6 weeks before the date and then on again 1 week before our due departure date. A Big rush to finalise bookings, do the medical bits, organise home and do the packing. This is mostly about Doc's record of our trip. I will be typing most of it for him, to be quicker - a case of the blind leading the blind. During the day Doc tells us what he wants in the blog and you can imagine by the time we get to a WiFi point in our accommodation at night, Doc is too tired to concentrate on this task. We are ... read more

Not even close. How disappointing. My flight was supposed to leave Wellington at 6am on Monday morning (09/08/10), but no captain - so was closer to 7. Anya Marina's cover of T.I.'s 'Whatever You Like' playing in the airport rounded up a peculiar last hour in NZ. Then there was a flight, a bus ride, a train ride and 15 minute walk to Braeden's place. After a brief interaction with his leaving flatmate, I was hanging solo from 11am (Aus time), since being awake since 1am (Aus time). Checked out the neighbourhood and tried to shake off that sleep deprivation. Braeden, Georgia (his girlfriend), Aaron and Kim (the briefly met flatmate) all returned in good time and provided a warm welcome to my home for 12 days. Other than a quick kip, I was awake for ... read more

The last three months in Australia, I am sad to say have been pretty normal… I arrived in Melbourne the second week of May, Dave had found us a great house just north of the city in an area called Brunswick. It is an alternative neighborhood that reminds me a lot of a straight Capital Hill. The local pubs always have live music, and there a lots of little trendy shops in the neighborhood. Because of our location transportation was so easy. Melbourne’s public transit is awesome and I will miss it very much. We lived in the house with two Aussie’s. Brett was from Sydney and Rowena is from just four hours away from Melbourne. It was an awesome living arrangement, I couldn’t have asked for better roommates. There was also a lovely cat named ... read more

Melbourne Diary: As I'm walking along a busy Elizabeth Street in the Central Business District two teenage girls are walking behind me who I overhear. It’s all “facking this, fucking that; No facking way” etc. etc. It got me thinking about how many times I’ve been shocked by the proclivity for cursing here. For example a couple of altercations between passengers on trams, and I’ve had to stand there after they’ve traded aggressive swearing with each other "go fuck yourself!" “Up ya, ya facking cant” - and that was from the woman. I’ve turned into Disgusted of Brunswick all of a sudden. Even my work colleagues regularly surprise me by using ”fack” and “shit” in mid-sentence as if it's any old word. Coarse language features prominently in Australia it seems (I could of course make reference ... read more

It appears I chose a very good time to leave the country and to travel the world for a bit. The UK couldn’t feel more distant at the moment, what with the endless reports of economic meltdown from the global recession, deep freezing winters and transport melt-down.…whereas the "wonder from down under" goes from strength to strength. Becoming the first G20 country to raise interest rates from the emergency level. Unemployment actually went down, bucking the global trend and surprising local economists who had all predicted a small rise.” Meanwhile back in Blighty: Elected members from the so-called “mother of all parliaments” disgrace themselves by being rather keen on claiming fake expenses; British Airways goes on a week-long strike - ruining everybody’s holidays and making us look like the keen as mustard strikes a-go-go... read more

Gawd Almighty! - I've been recently having some serious flash-backs of stuff that’s happened during my 13 months away - both good and bad. I realise that I’ve managed to NOT record some of the most memorable moments of my entire time away, either consciously or unconsciously. Some tasty flashbacks include: In Adelaide, being chucked out of Hannah’s place on Boxing Day because I'd threatened her big mental German Shepherd Dog; in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand having a tryst with an English chick who’d gotten locked out of her room next door to my room; being attacked by rabid dogs in the centre of Bangkok, etcetera. Good times - as they say. Which gets me to thinking why I started this travel blog in the first place. Firstly, to avoid sending out over-long group emails updating ... read more