Melbourne

---

---

The Journey so far ....
Wayne Jackson + Chris Irving Melbourne

We arrived at Melbourne airport to be greeted by a cool breeze as we stepped of the plane. This was actually quite refreshing as we hadn’t felt cold since we had left England two weeks ago!
We managed to hop on a shuttle bus at the air port which took us straight to our youth hostel (The Pint On Punt)
We left the bags in our room and set of into the town to have a look around. First impressions of Melbourne were very good, there is a lot on offer for things to do and see, also everything is very clean i.e. the streets and parks ECT.
With staying at the pint on punt we got to meet quite a few other backpackers who were also in the same boat as us. A few of them had came to Australia to travel yet had slipped into the lifestyle of living in the pint on punt and ended up spending there travelling funds on drinking every night. Its not that the hostel that drives you to drink, as a whole the place is good and the staff are friendly, its just the fact that the hostel has a pub underneath which has a different event on every week, all with cheap drink for backpackers!
The first night we stayed at the pint I noticed a small bug run across my sheet, as you can image my first thought was bed bugs! I hadn’t ever seen bed bugs before so I wasn’t to sure; I had also squished the thing so identifying it was a no go. I checked my mattress and had Chris check his, no others were found so we left it at that and went to sleep. I had the sheets changed in the morning just to be on the safe side. Over the next week Chris would wake up with bites, we even had the manager check the bed but still no sign of bed bugs! A few days later and things were the same, this time Chris lifted up the slats on the bed to find an army of the blood sucking gets, running for there lives as Chris contemplated many ways of painful extermination. We were moved room and had to wash and tumble dry everything, a pain in the ass but it seemed to solve the problem. On the plus side the room in which we were moved to was considered to be the best room in the hostel, so not all bad!
We had spent a lot of our time at the internet café looking for a campervan as we decided that the longer we stayed at the pint the less money we would have for a camper, as we too were slipping into the lifestyle of drinking contests and late night poker games.
We did visit the aquarium while we were in Melbourne but that’s about as far as we got on the tourist side of the scale. There is a lot more things to see and do in Melbourne like the AFL stadium ECT however we seemed more focused on purchasing a campervan so we could begin our trip of Australia.
We managed to both get some part time work at a warehouse not far from where we were staying, The work was alright as some days there would also be a few others from the hostel working too which made the day go quicker. With it being winter at this end of Australia work and vans were harder to come by.
After three weeks of being in Melbourne and several unsuccessful views later we finally bought a camper van! It’s a yellow Toyota Hi Ace. It seems to be well maintained and in good condition. It also came with a few extras such as a fishing rod, cutlery, two mountain bikes, and two body boards. We bought it off a couple from Canada who were just finishing there tour of Australia. They seemed a genuinely nice couple who seemed a little sad to be getting rid of there pride and joy.
Well tomorrow we will be heading to Warrnambool through Geelong and Camperdown, we will then hopefully travel to Torquay along the Great ocean road, stopping overnight along the way.

---