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Published: November 4th 2006
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Saturday 28th October Laura - Today we said a tearful fairwell to our little BB King. It was a sad moment, he's served us well! We even gave him a bit of a clean before we left him.
After that we went and looked for a hostel and eventually settled for 'Melbourne Connections' near the centre of town. It's hardly the Blue Parrot, but it will do for a couple of nights. We basically strolled around Melbourne for the rest of the day, and I have to say it really is a very lovely city. It's a lot more vibrant and busy compared to Sydney, and there seems to be a greater mix of people wandering about. The river really reminds me of the Southbank in London. It's very windy though at the moment and we've had to wear jackets! Where has the hot weather gone?!
We had a look around a couple of galleries near the river and spent longer than necessary playing on computer games in the Moving Image museum (Paul was in his element). Outside there was a small concert going on in Federation Square so we stopped and watched that for a while. We
also stumbled across a Malaysia Fiesta going on in one of the high streets and reminisced over our travels in Malaysia, taking in the smells of roti canai and watching some traditional dancing.
I can't really think what else we did apart from walk around and take in the feel of the city. There are some really nice buildings here, like the train station and St Paul's cathedral. So we took a few photos of them. In the evening we cooked some dinner in the disgusting kitchen of our hostel then went for another walk along the river. We got back and drank a cheap bottle of wine given to us by Wicked campers in Brisbane, played Trivial Pursuit, then collapsed into bed.
Sunday 29th October Laura - I may have joked about stopping in truckers stops at BP garages when we were in the camper van, but at least in the van we didn't have drunken people stumbling in at 4am, having a lenghty conversation and turning the bedroom light on! Grrr, this is why we dislike staying in dorms. So after being woken up (on more than one occasion) during the night, we didn't
manage to roll out of bed until midday. How very lazy of us. Then we realised that the clocks have gone forward an hour here, so it was actually 1pm!
So we'd wasted half the day. We had planned to go to the museum today, but by the time we'd had showers and food it was getting on. We decided to just have another stroll around the city instead and leave the museum for tomorrow. We made our way to the Victoria Market and had a good look around there. It was a pretty good market, but didn't have anything we wanted. After that we had a picnic in the park and watched some English backpackers playing football badly. Another stroll around the city followed and we watched a really impressive busker playing an interesting take on blues music on one of the highstreets. There was also another concert going on in Federation Square but we'd just missed it.
After cooking dinner in the gross kitchen of the hostel, we escaped the clique gathering in the sitting area and went for another walk.
Monday 30th October Paul - A fun night of people turning
the light on at 1am, coming in drunk at 3am and sleeping in the same bed as a guy at roughly 4am. Ah, it was like university all over again.
We rolled out of bed and proceeded to make as much noise as possible at 8am. If you can't beat them, join them. Today we planned to go to the Melbourne Museum, which was actually fascinating and I had no idea it would be. Good, informative and interactive displays made for a fun morning and to cap it all off Laura got to see the actual ("oh my god Paul this is where they cook their dinner!") set of number 26 Ramsey Street.
Excitement over we wandered through the parks of the city and into a second hand bookshop where we purused for an hour. A hop, skip and a jump later and we arrived at the smallest airport in the world (think of a shed, think of a slightly worn shed and you've got it!) to board our flight to Sydney.
Our plan was to spend the night in the airport. A prospect I thought would be hilarious and it turned out to be so! After
being ushered into one corner by the security guards (apparently after 11pm there are no inbound or outbound flights - I couldn't quite believe that!) Laura and I (and a few other brave souls) settled down into our seats for the night.
A strange guy with a large beard kept wandering around rather oddly - sitting down, standing up, even dialing the phone without picking up the receiver. Laura, ever the neighbourhood watch expert, decided she'd seen enough. No one dials phones without permission. Especially not after standing up and sitting down repeatedly. She was straight over to security to have the guy reported. Suffice to say he was ejected. The moral of this story? Don't trust guys with beards.
Tuesday 31st October Paul - Woke up fresh and invigorated only to find man with beard was back. Doing excatly the same routine as last night. Luckily for him, Snitchy Miss Snitch was asleep and so he wouldn't be getting ejected just yet. After taking an amusing photo of Laura asleep I decided to wake her up at 6am. She was pleasently surprised to say the least and spent the rest of the morning
pretending her eyes couldn't focus. Honestly, the things this woman comes out with. She'll be telling me it's cold in New Zealand next.
Which brings me to New Zealand and what a spectacular entrance to the country it was. After almost missing our flight (the idiots didn't update the board that there was a gate change and expected people to just know...) we were treated to truly awe inspiring views over the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Hopefully we'd be getting a better look at these snow capped wonders on the ground but it was amazing enough from the air. Laura remarked that it was more spectacular than the Alps and I had to agree.
Got into Christchurch no problems and found a splendid hostel outside of town. It's probably the nicest place we've stayed since Cambodia. An added bonus was the guy who checked us in was super helpful and we are now going to be driving round New Zealand in our own little car (HOPEFULLY!). I'm very excited at this prospect as it means more time away from horrible backpackers. Woo hoo.
Christchurch seems very nice but we'll be exploring tomorrow so stay tuned for that and also for Laura complaining it's cold. You might hear about that...
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Weeze
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So jealous of NZ!
Hey guys Am so jealous of New Zealand travels. One of my friends has just got back and keeps getting threatening letters about her speeding over there because there's not much traffic on the roads. And I'm busy complaining bout the cold over here, so sympathies to Laura and was loving the Neighbours comments Pauly. Weeze xxx