Just Because it's the Capital

The weather never does clear up in Sydney so on the last day we all lounge around and later in the afternoon Nicole and I take a walk to Darling Harbor to just sit in the breeze and relax. Sunday night is our last night and Monday morning we’re determined to go to Canberra - no more extensions, no more hanging around Sydney. Everyone tells us that Canberra is boring and that there’s nothing there worth visiting, but we figure it’s the capital of Australia and on the way to Melbourne, so we can’t very well just drive by without stopping.

Speaking of driving by, a few days earlier I had said out loud how nice it would be to take part in a ride share - you find someone with a car who’s going in the same direction that you are and share the cost of gas in exchange for a lift. People do it all the time, but finding someone who’s going the same way at the same time as you are in a little more challenging. Lucky for us, Nicole walks by the message board and sees a notice posted by someone named Bert who says he’s going to Melbourne on Tuesday and has space for two people in his car. We give him a call and plan to meet that night to discuss us possibly getting a ride with him.

Bert turns out to be a 56-year-old man from Holland. He’s been traveling down the East coast with a car he rented in Cairns and has been picking people up along the way. We tell him that we want to go to Canberra and could he maybe pick us up there on Tuesday and we could drive the rest of the way with him to Melbourne. He also seems interested in visiting the Parliament and decides to make the trip with us, stay the night, and continue to Melbourne the next day. We’re going to leave at 8am Monday morning, so Nicole and I go to bed early and pack before we fall asleep.

Bert wants to get us put on as drivers for his car. Adding Nicole is a piece of cake, but I would cost a $300 fee because I’m under 25, so we decide to forget that idea and I just camp out in the back seat for the journey. We arrive in Canberra around 3 in the afternoon and go straight to the Parliament. Unfortunately for us Parliament is not in session, but we can still visit the House of Representatives and the Senate. It looks strikingly similar to the inside of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa. We also get a chance to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens before they close the gates at 5pm. We’re staying at two different hostels because we couldn’t find one that would fit all three of us, but we’re cooking dinner together at the hostel Nicole and I are staying at. In a weird coincidence, the only other girl our room is a Dutch girl that had met Bert in Byron Bay so we all ate together.

We left early again the next morning because the trip to Melbourne is supposed to take roughly eight hours. I spent most of it in the back listening to Bert and Nicole chat in the front. Bert is a cool guy and he has two sons who are 22 and 25, the same age as Nicole and I, so he seems to really bond with us. We’ve booked three beds for Nicole, Lea and I at King Street Backpackers, but Bert couldn’t cancel his room at the Metro YHA. He drops us off so we can get settled, we meet Lea, and later we all go to Lord of the Fries, a burger and fries place that Simon has insisted that I visit. And they really do have the best fries I’ve ever had, so Simon was right. Nicole’s friend Marine meets us in town with her house-mate Nick and all of us go to a bar in Chinatown. Marine and Nick rent rooms in an old house and they have a room Nicole and I can rent. It’s a small room, but it has a double bed and a dresser and the room is going for $90 a week, so if Nicole and I share it it’ll cost us $45 a week each. It’s small and not very fancy and there’s a lot of people living there, but it’s only for 6 weeks and it’s so cheap I can’t possibly turn it down.

The next day Marine and Bert meet us at the hostel after lunch - we all decided we needed a good morning sleeping in. We go to the Melbourne Museum until it closes and then find a chocolate shop where Livvy can meet us. She finally decided to come to Melbourne from Sydney, which I think is a good idea because she started having boy troubles same as Nicole and I did. Marine has invited us all to her house for dinner so we can meet the other people renting there and take a look at the room for the first time. The other house-mates are cool guys and one of them even has an old one-eyed dog that loves people. It’s going to be a good time at the house I think.

Our last day in Melbourne I’m not feeling so great - I’ve got my second cold since Byron Bay. I want to go to the aquarium though. Bert meets us there and Nathan sends me a text saying that he’s in town and meets us there too with a guy from New Zealand that he met on the bus from Bateman’s Bay. I can’t decide if the aquarium in Sydney is better or not, but it was pretty cool. We’re all hungry once we leave so I make us all go back to Lord of the Fries because it’s just so delicious. Nicole, Lea, and Bert want to go to St. Kilda and walk around, but I don’t feel like being out in the in the chilly weather so Nathan, his friend Matt and I go to the Immigration Museum instead. The museum was really interesting - all about the immigrants who originally populated Australia and the history of Australia’s immigration policies. By the time we’re finished there I’m really not feeling so hot, so I head back to the hostel on my own.

It’s Lea’s last night in Melbourne. On Friday she flies back to Brisbane because she flies home to Switzerland on November 30th. She is desperate to go out dancing. When the two of them come home to meet me they are already holding beers and dancing to Nicole’s iPod. I’m feeling better, so we all get dressed and go to a club called Lounge in the city. Bert even comes. It’s a little weird because its like going dancing with your father (and no matter how much I love my father, that’s still a little weird), but Bert can bust a move so it’s fun. A couple hours later he goes back to the hostel because he decides that the three of us need a girls night. The three of us have been traveling together for over two weeks now and are close, so it is nice to end Lea’s trip with just the three of us.

Once he leaves the night kind of turns into a wild goose chase. We meet a couple of guys at the bar who say they’re going to another club if we want to come, and we do, but that bar is closed, and so is the next one, so in the end we eventually find ourselves in a weird little pool hall drinking beers and challenging each other to the games. Somewhere along the way we find an English guy named Jack and loose one of the Australians. Nicole and Jack leave to collect Jack’s things from his hostel because he’s decided he wants to go on the Great Ocean Highway with them the next morning. So it ends up being me, Lea, and Liam, the other Australian. Liam walks us home and at that point its almost 5 in the morning, so he stays over in the room too. Somehow we managed to cram five people into three beds.

We hardly wake up the next morning with enough time to check out. Liam hangs out while we pack frantically and then ambles off to find a bus. Lea is flying out that afternoon and Nicole and Jack are going with Bert and Marine to do the Great Ocean Highway. I was going to go with them but what I really want to do is go all the way to Adelaide and stay a few days and then go back again and they aren’t doing that kind of trip. I’ve decided to go to Tasmania instead but the ferry only goes overnight. Nathan meets me at the hostel and we go to the Melbourne Gaol in the afternoon and see the very gallows where Ned Kelly himself was hanged. We stop for Japanese food after because Nathan just learned how to use chop sticks the day before.

I find my ferry, but I’m climbing on board completely blind. I haven’t booked any hostels or any buses, I just figure it’ll come together once I get there. Really I’m just tired of booking things. Even though it’s the least organized I’ve been since I started traveling I’m not worried. It’ll be even more exciting this way I guess, since I don’t even know what I want to see.

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Part of trip: My 6 Month Adventure!

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