Melbourne & Melbourne to Sydney Road Trip.

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Hello faithful readers, if I have any left? It’s been a while since I last updated my blog but over the last 2 weeks I have had some good, bad and ugly times……..

Bad times start way back at Alice Springs. Ceri and I had a fright when arriving at the airport, we were not booked on the flight WTF? There was 1 hour to our flight was due to leave and Ceri and I were not on it. We had to call the emergency number for our travel agent. To cut this long story short, we call the emergency flight number, and thankfully due to the nice person on the end of the phone and the nice Qantas lady at the airport and a lot of luck due to our flight was delayed by 3 hours we managed to get on the plane.
This was a very stressful time if Ceri and I had missed our flight our around the world ticket would no longer be valid.
A complaint was logged to flight Centre and to my disbelief they tried to put the blame on to Ceri and I, according to flight centre we have to revalidate ours self’s, if we do a date change. Strange how we never had to revalidate our tickets when we changed the date at Thailand mmmmmmmmm think they are telling porkeys.

After our little venture at the airport we arrived at Adelaide to catch the grey hound bus to Melbourne and with all the drama and action at Alice Spring I am happy to report we arrive safely at Melbourne after a 12 hour bus ride.
This is where the Ugly times begin Ceri and I had real problems finding a hostel but after a lot of phone calling we managed to find a little and cheap place for only $20 a night, we thought we hit the jackpot…….. We were so wrong.
Bev and Micks backpacker is a hostel on top of a pub, which is never a bad thing, and the owner Chris is gave us a really warm welcome. A good start that soon went wrong, we were in a dorm room with 3 Irish guys, one of them introduce him self as “Hi I am going out to get shit faced tonight on pill” charming!!!
Well the 3 guys did not disappoint they came back at 7am in the morning all out of there head, one was so out of it he did not seem to bothered to just get naked and past out on his bed with his naked bottom hanging in the air, what a nice site for Ceri in the morning. We promptly left this hostel and the nice pill head guys to there business.

Good times, after the last few days being pretty stressful with the airport incident, not finding a hostel and when we do finding a really bad one we got some good luck and found a lovely little guess house just out side the city. In the guess house Ceri and I met 2 lovely people Ester from Leeds who was away for an 8 week holiday and Ci Ci from Thailand who was o on holiday before going back to Thailand to start her own business.

The next few day were spent exploring Melbourne and just chilling out as there not much to do here for a city, even harder when the weather was cold and raining.
St Kilda is a little seaside resort and reminds me a lot of a seaside resort in the UK. St Kilda was packed with tourist and back packers and all the hostels were fully booked due to the face its right near a beach. The nightlife here and little café and bars all look good and if I ever come back to Melbourne this is the place I would stay or recommend to anyone.
In the centre of the city Moomba festival was currently on which is one of the largest and longest running festivals in Australia. Some people know it as Moomba waterfest as it takes place around the Yarra River. The city was buzzing on this day there was a carnival around the river and water skiing going on where the best water skiers in the world were trying to break the world’s longest water ski jump. At night they have a firework display and good festival for the family.

Crown Casino …….. Well come on for those that know me, know I love to gamble and lets face it I had to go to the casino at some point in my trip just to see if I could get lucky. The casino it’s self to my surprise was quiet big, and reminded me of casino in Vegas, not like a dingy casino in the UK. I was not lucky and ended up losing $400 but I did have $1000 to lose I had a plan to try and win $10000 so I could carry on my trip to the 15th November 2009 but it failed.

Neighbours.
Well I did not know where the Ramsey street was in Australia but when arriving in Melbourne we found out it was here so even though its very sad I just had to go and see if Harold was home.
Ceri, Ester and I went to Ramsay Street just to find out it is called pinoak court and Harold died in Neighbours ages ago. The street it self is really small no more than 8 houses but it was cool and sad, but I can now say I have been to Ramsay street lol. If only Steph was home that day hehe.

This was pretty much it for Melbourne I did say there was not much to do in this city but I do think it’s worth a visit, wish I had planned to be here when the formula one is on at the end of the month as would of been a much better experience.

Camper Van Road Trip
Road Trip again this time our trip is going to take us along the coastline from Melbourne to Sydney. First stop of the along the road was Phillip island which is about 150k away from Melbourne. Once in Philip island the first thing we do is drive to the super bike grand prix circuit were I have a go in the go Kart before we head of for the beach to camp for the night.
When setting up camp one of the locals who was cycling past told us if we stayed at the beach the police would surely come around and tell us to move. The guy seemed really friendly and offered Ceri and I to park our van on his drive for the night, which I gladly accepted. Once the guy had cycled off as he lived about a 10 min bike ride away Ceri told me she thinks he is a bit wired so we decided not to take him up on his offer and drove away and set camp up somewhere else.
In the morning we headed for the amazing maze amazing which was full of illusions and one big maze, we were told it was aimed at adults but there were loads of kinds there. We also popped in to the local chocolate factory and got some free samples.
Our Journey continued through the little towns of Foster, Yarram before he got to the start of the 90 mile beach where we were setting up camp for the night at seaspray. When we drove in to the campsite I managed to get the camper van bogged in the sand. As it was quiet late at night there was nothing Ceri I could do so we deiced to deal with it in the morning.
When the morning came we got very lucky, the nearest town was about 15k away but 100 meters down the road a nice guy in a 4x4 van pulled over when we waved him down and drove in to the camp site and not only did he pull us out he also dug us out as we were proper bogged in the sand a very nice man indeed.
In the morning our trip took us through more small towns along the 90 mile beach the towns of Sale, Bairnsdale, Lake Entrance, Orbost, before setting up camp in cape coastal at Kakum Nation Park.
In the morning we took a walk around the beach and the national park then headed for the 300k drive to Canberra.
We spent the next day in Canberra doing a city walk, walk around burley Griffin Lake and sight seeing, before driving to Namadgi national park for a hike up the mountain. Canberra is quiet a nice city to visit but only spend a day here.

The next day it was time to head for the Blue Mountains national park. Over the next few days Ceri and I walked over 12 hours around the national park covering the following walks Wentworth walks, Echo point, National pass, Valley of the waters, Under cliff walk, over cliff walk and the 3 sisters. The Blue Mountains national park is bar far the best national park I have been to since being in Australia. The Blue Mountains was not with out it's drama though. One of the days when Ceri and I parked up to go in the local hostel for a $2 shower, Dick head here being me left the lights on, and our camper van battery went dead. Being right out side a police station I formally told Ceri to go and use her female charm and ask the nice policemen in the station to give us a jump start. This worked liked a charmed and 2 nice police men came to our rescue. See the power of a woman fluttering her eyes is amazing hehe.

I think I am going to end this blog entrée here I have had a bout 7 JD’s now and I am a little drunk as can’t hold my drink anymore as not been drinking much, will update you all soon my plans.

Until the next time Derek

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