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Melbourne City Centre
Just a great city to walk around in, people everywhere and my favorite...nice architecture. After a four hour flight we landed down under...hello Melbourne Australia. Three and a half months in New Zealand have now officially come to an end, I'm sure gonna miss that place, if you ever have the chance go to NZ, you won't regret it.
We caught our 6am flight to Melbourne and stumbled into our hostel at around 10am after the time change. Feeling slightly deranged with only two hours of sleep, we set off to check out the town, and what a nice town Melbourne turned out to be. A mix of Victorian and modern architecture are the setting for this bustling city of four million people. I had forgotten what it was like to walk around midtown Manhattan, but it quickly came back to me after passing endless people wearing black suits. It took an hour or so to remember how to cross the street with hundreds of people all around. Amazing how you can spend twenty seven years around a city, and only after four months travelling mostly in the country, you lose your aggressiveness. But don't worry I was back to my city self pretty quickly. There are trams running throughout the city, restaurants all
Downtown Melbourne
Trams run everywhere... over the place, department stores, cafes and coffee shops every few feet.
As I do with most cities just spent my time walking around, people watching. We checked out Fitzroy, as Moskowitz puts it the "Hipster Duffus" part of town, similar to Williamsburg/SoHo/Greenwich Village. Where most people wear new clothes that look like old clothes but cost hundreds of dollars. Fitzroy has great buildings, reminded me of the New Orleans style French architecture. Headed to St. Kilda, a beach community in the summer that has been rejuvenated by the yuppies of Melbourne. One of the places to live these days. Other than that we visited a few museums, checked out the parks and went on more than a few bar crawls.
Left Melbourne at the butt crack, catching another 6am flight up to Fraser Coast, Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay, a beach community, reminiscent of Florida, palm trees, ocean breeze, warm weather, sand everywhere. I had to dig through my bag for my shorts which haven't seen the light of day for a few months now. I was in heaven I needed to find the warm weather, it had been pretty cold for the last couple months of travel.
Federation Square...
Notice the new age buildings, quite contemporary There is one reason to head to Hervey Bay...it's the starting point for 4WD rentals on Fraser Island. Fraser Island, National Park, World Heritage site and the largest sand island in the world. More sand that the Sahara desert.
Bryan, Tudor, Becky and I picked up, what turned out to be my new best friend...Toyota Hilux 2.8D. Basically a pickup truck on steroids with a high suspension, knobby tires, just a sand eating machine. It's hard to describe what Fraser island is like, picture rainforest covered sand dunes, with single track roads chris-crossing the island, a seventy five mile beach up the west coast that you can drive on. They give you keys, a map, some camping gear and a ticket for the ferry. We loaded up on food and hit the trail. HOLY SHIT!!! is the best way for me to describe the feeling I had the entire time driving on Fraser island. Driving a 4WD on deep sand at 40km/hr is just the biggest adrenaline rush I've ever experienced, it was almost hard to believe they let us do it. After becoming better at the manual transmission I was ready to drive on the inside of the
Queen Victoria Market
One of the largest markets I\'ve ever explored...food, gifts, art, socks...you name it they sell it here. island. The most challenging driving I've ever done, similar to driving a car on the highway after 6 inches of snow falls and they haven't plowed yet. I'm going to try and put a mpeg up to show how crazy it was. We camped on the dunes, no one within eye sight of us either night, enjoyed the sound of the ocean breaking all night long, starred at some of the best stars I've seen yet and slept in my tent with out the rainfly with a nice ocean breeze blowing all night long.
It took two days to recover in Hervey Bay after getting back from the excursion. Then I headed to Brisbane for the day, met up with Moskowitz again and we are now in Byron Bay. A beach community filled with surfers and laid back people, just soaking up the sun and genuinely enjoying life. We stayed at this place called The Arts Factory, almost Hippy commune meets tropical island setting. A bar called the Buddha Bar with oriental decor, a dance studio and one of the nicest, most comfortable movie theaters I've watched a movie in. The seats where all couches, sofas, lounging chairs. It
Aboriginal Art
I really was drawn to these masks...quite unique! was like sitting at home with a 15 foot screen to watching a movie on Sunday afternoon. Basically took it easy in Byron, read my book, lounged by the pool, enjoyed the sunshine, checked out the stunning beach and prepared myself for the next stop Nimbim.
I'll hit on Nimbim, Cairns and Sydney, where I landed yesterday in the next blog...Stay tuned!
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