Blogs from Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 570

Thursday August 17 Since our arrival at the hotel was too early to check in, we went on a walking tour of the downtown area. There are lots of nice older buildings, many from the 1850s, which is the period of the Australian gold rush. There is also much newer and funky architecture, but I liked the preservation of the old buildings. In fact, they have a law that requires developers to preserve older buildings - at least the facades. So in several places there were old buildings about 10 feet deep that adjoined totally new buildings. Also on the walking tour, Paul introduced us to Fantales, a candy whose wrapper contains a fact about some celebrity. He also showed us the Haight’s chocolate shop. Haight’s founder had worked with Hershey in the States, and then ... read more

Monday. We took a trip to the supermarket (Coles) to get food for the road trip that lay ahead of us the following day to the drive the Great Ocean Road. Cheese, ham and cheese-topped rolls were on the menu for our packed lunch ready to eat on a beach somewhere, with an amazing view along on the ocean road. It was a shop that was spurred on by a hangover from the standard Sunday night activities, whereby Chris and I will visit our local pub, The Prince of Wales where the bartender now knows to pour us a jug of VB with out even asking him, then head to Q-Bar to see Matt. As we carry our food home we find ourselves confronted by a large queue of people outside ‘the Prince’ a bar/venue/club on ... read more

We'd heard a lot from various people we know about Melbourne being a "great place to live in", a "working city" or "a place you either love or hate", so we had high hopes for our visit. We were going to stay with some friends from London who'd recently moved out there so thankfully no hostels! First impressions were good - the city has a quite comfortable feel to it for someone from Ireland or Britain..despite the excellent public transport and decent weather. It feels like a UK city should had they had the chance to start again and do things right. We went for lunch in the Brunswick Street area near where our friends live...sitting outside in the middle of winter in a place which, by Aussie standards, is cold was a nice welcome to ... read more

Nou, daar zijn we dan weer met een update. Wat is er allemaal gebeurd de afgelopen tijd... nou goed, we waren dus gebleven bij het weekend voor de footy wedstrijd! Nou, dat was wel een aparte belevenis kan ikw el zeggen! begon al gezellig doordat we op vrijdagavond hadden afgesproken na het werk. Dus op tijd de deur achter me dicht getrokken, en lekker om half 6 aan het bier, goed begin van het weekend! Op vrijdagavond is het altijd sowieso erg druk in alle kroegjes hier, vele mensen gaan na het werk wat drinken op vrijdag dus dat was extra gezellig! na een lekker biertje te hebben gedronken naar een andere kroeg gegaan (James Squire’s waar het bier zelf gebrouwen wordt) om daar ene lekker fish and chips te eten met een goed glas bier ... read more

Kat writes: Eight to a room After 3 below zero nights in a camp site in Melbourne's suburbs we moved out. The extreme cold and sleeping in two layers of clothes, plus a sleeping bag, duvet, fleece, blanket, woolly hat and gloves, just wasn't working for us. So reluctantly we left the van and moved into a hostel in St Kilda for the first time since Sydney, over 4 months ago now. Back then we had taken double rooms but now came the time to take the plunge and have a shared dorm. Oush! Venturing in to the 8 bed dorm was actually not as bad as we had imagined. In this particular hostel everything was brand new and modern but more importantly, it was heated. Apparently though our dorm room did smell like Jenkin's room ... read more