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Published: February 14th 2007
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When in Melbourne...
...stay at the Delmont. This is my uncle's fishing boat from about 150 years ago when he lived with Tim From the moment I was picked up at the airport I could see this was going to be a different kind of trip. The daily trucking of backpack and sundry from one sock-whiffing backpacker dorm to the next, beans and toast and takeout chicken, the same 8 buck goon-bags being held to new sunburnt faces every day, were to be left aside in earnest while I checked in to the Delmont ***** (currently being pursued by the Marriot group with a view to a high profile takeover)
"Mi Casa es tu casa" invited Tim, unknowingly commencing two and a half months of having a leech attached to his previously reputable domicile. One neighbour on Delmont avenue complained "I was thinking of selling up and retiring in the Dandenong foothills but house prices on this damn street have fallen through the floor. Neighbourhood's gone to hell."
Yes, the past 10 weeks have been taken at an entirely different canter to the rest of my travels. The Delmont boasts an extensive library and seven-guitar music suite, as well as its own boutique brewery and garden for total self sufficiency. Tim is a mate of my uncles who is best described as
a writer and collecter of miscellania, and happened to be on his summer break when I arrived so we have had a ball talking book, drinking proper wine (not gooner) and playing the blues.
After numerous attempts to get a job in Melbourne's traditional backpacker-employing industries had fallen short of the money shot, I attained the post of "diversional therapist" in a nursing home for high care residents. This mainly involved capering for the amusement of a bunch of lovely old folk expending the energy of a Saturday morning kids TV host. I quickly discovered that flower arranging and singing christmas carols as loud as possible to rouse my gently-dozing and constantly urinating friends was not my forte, although I did genuinely enjoy getting to know them all. So I was demoted/promoted hastily to admin assistant in the same establishment, a role that suited me infinitely better, and I just finished working there yesterday, content in the knowledge that few will be able to step into my fleet-faxing and speedy-stapling shoes.
Ideas of Christmas in Victoria. What springs to mind? Barbeques on the beach? Not this year, possums! Christmas morning, on the drive to Bushy Park (you'll not
find it on the map) about 3 hours east of Melbourne there was actually sleet and hail on the road. A nippy one but it certainly made for a more homely yuletide than I was expecting. A few days after Christmas and I was off to Sydney to meet Jules who was flying in at seven in the evening. Not much time to get gathered up for the fireworks show, but we made it out there with sand to spare in the hourglass and had a cracking (oh dear) night blowing the budget a little on a $250 buck-a-night hotel. Sydney seems like a pretty nice city and we did get a good look around it. I especially liked the old sailor's quarters by the docks and the way a lot of the old architecture from the Aussies' ball-and-chain wearing days was still to be seen.
But Sydney falls a fair way short of Melbourne in terms of culture and atmosphere. Victoria's metropolitan centre is just brimming with fantastic architecture, live music, festivals, comedy, art (unlike Bunbury, Australia's official bad sculpture capital), pubs and restaurants. A couple of weekends spent hanging around St Kilda and attending live music at
St Kilda
Luna park. the Espy (like the Limelight and Vico's rolled into a much better package) And all the usual utility stuff a city generally gets wrong like efficient cheap transport and town planning are pretty spot on here. If I had to pick a world city to live Melbourne would probably lead the pack.
The working life of a urine tang-tolerating rambler has been punctuated by weekends spent sampling some of Victoria's delights that a normal backpacker pass-through experience wouldn't have encompassed. Jules and I were lucky enough to witness Tim's syndicate's thoroughbred Jimoda run its promising first race at Mooney Valley ( a suburb made famous by Dame Edna, possums...) and to visit Caulfield all dressed up like the man from Del Monte in the member's lounge, punting away like my incontinent pals in the OAPs home would have done on Bingo night. When there were no horseraces to attend, weekends sometimes took us to Kalorama where Tim's partner Miranda had the most amazing house on the mountain. A good few degrees cooler than the city this was a welcome reprive from the usual 30 - 40 degree heat (Christmas day was just a freak), and her collection of wildlife
Dignity at the Cathedral
Some famous dead guy's dignity remains intact outside the cathedral as a seagul lets loose on his head. ranges from the imperial sulper crested Cacatua galerita and Rosellas in impressive wild numbers feeding almost from your hand, to her peacock, chooks, arthritic german shepard and murdersome cat.
So actually living in Melbourne in a suburb, getting the train every day and working with people outside the backpacker circuit has really allowed me to get some insight into how a Victorain lives, rather than bombing through meeting mostly Germans and Irish wearing bad Jandals (as they're known in Kiwiland, just getting into the lingo bro, eh?) has been a unique experience and I know (tough luck Tim but the floodgate's open) I'll return.
Flying to New Zealand in a couple of hours. It is most definitely time I donned the sacred pack and clutched my beat old guitar (which now has an inferiority complex after standing aside Martins and Gibsons for a couple of months), and make for the road again. We're going to buy a little camper van in Christchruch and just live in it for the next six weeks.
Gonna be fully sick bro!
PS, if you're new to this mailing list and you want to see previous blogs/photos, click "previous journal" at
Eureka
View from Federation square of Melbourne CBD the bottom of the page.
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G Mon
non-member comment
U lucky shiiiite
I've just landed back in sunny wet London, jet lagged after no sleep and another 5 hours to wait for my flight to belfiersty!! I'm almost in tears here mate. Have a cracking one and I'll email ya proper when the internet isn't £2 for 20 mins - fucking rip off Britain!! The man from delmonte says "lets go shoot some dirty pigs"