Australia Part 1 - Melbourne

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Sunshine, warmth, good friends and a city with some life

Well I think we managed about 4 hours sleep between us what with the same old “mustn’t miss the plane” thoughts running through our heads and “have we got everything coz we’re not coming back” worries. We dragged our bags and ourselves onto the airport shuttle we had pre booked - they have you over a barrel on this sort of thing as the general buses don’t run at early hours so you have no other choice!! As I said before at least getting up early made the flight easier, we both fell asleep within minutes leaving me no time to worry about the fact I didn’t have my lucky flying bracelet on. On landing the landscape looked like the rural fields of England, which I wasn’t expecting. I’d had this image in my head that Australia was gonna be nothing but red desert with some cities in between so to see this landscape and having been asleep I was sure they’d just flown us home…..no no once we stepped out of the plane and felt the heat I knew we couldn’t have been in the UK!!

My first stop was at the toilet where I spent some time checking the seat for spiders - luckily none there but I was still nervous and kept feeling itches on my legs. When we got on the shuttle bus into Melbourne city I even stopped Nath mid sentence to say I thought I had just felt something run over my foot. Of course it was nothing but its funny what you can convince yourself of at times. We got to our hotel/hostel too early to check in so left our bags there and walked into town in search of some breakfast. It seemed on our walk into town that there was nothing going on, for all the skyscrapers and cars zipping about there were no people and no shops for what we could see. It was getting on for 10:15am and we were still looking for a Macdonalds, well for anywhere that sold anything would have been good. By the time we finally found where everyone was hiding in this city and the Macdonalds, we were too late for the cheap breakfast so went back to a cafe we had passed on the way in. As we sat outside watching the city come to life awaiting our breakfast we had the joy of listening to the accompanying music supplied by the café - Kylie Minogue!! We thought they were taking the piss but it seems they don’t lay this music on just for tourists they actually do listen to the old stuff.

After ages we finally got our breakfast, we were a little annoyed as we were due to meet Amanda at 11am and were running out of time. We got told that the owners daughter (who was about 9) had coked it so it was late because she was learning the ropes. Likely storey we thought - that’s it use emotional blackmail. They even brought her out in the end to find out what we thought of the food just to complete the lie! They were however friendly enough people keen to find out about us and what our plans were. Again being in a new country we were on the defensive thinking “why? what do you want?” but it turns out they were just asking, there was no alterative motive - we must have more faith in people!! After stuffing our breakfast down we headed to the steps of Flinders street station where Nath had agreed to meet Amanda (Amanda worked with Nath a few years back before moving to Melbourne). We waited for a while on these tiny steps that were meant to be a huge meeting place for people, and wondered if perhaps we had the wrong place. But we couldn’t see anything else up or down the road so stayed there a bit longer thinking maybe we were early? However at 11:15 we decided that perhaps we were wrong and there were other steps, so we walked about 100 meters down the road only to find a huge amount of steps with lots of people waiting and greeting friends and of course Amanda and her husband Graham wondering where we’d been - doh!!
Having arrived in Melbourne early with very little sleep we hadn’t thought about the fact that they may have wanted to eat with us, so the breakfast we had just rushed was not needed as we went to a café on the main square to have some more food. We had to turn the kind offer down but of course accepted another cup of tea. This lead us to witness our first experience of the Aussie people not understanding sarcasm - something that was sure to get us into some awkward situations during the rest of our stay. Graham had ordered some egg on toast which of course came with a huge choice of different breads. 2 mins later and the waitress came back and told us they didn’t have the type of bread he had chosen so he made another selection on the bread. When she came back a second time Graham asked “don’t tell me you’ve run out of eggs!!”, nothing not even a smirk just a straight forward answer “no, no we have eggs!” -oh never mind!!

We chatted for ages about their time here so far, they had moved out here 2 years ago after just deciding to give up their jobs and sell their house without any guarantees over in Australia - talk about brave (or mad), but it had worked out perfectly and now they loved it so much (and the kids) that even a recent trip back to the UK was more of a strain than a fun reunion and had confirmed they had made the right decision. I could see why, maybe it was because we had got used to the small towns of NZ and the long empty roads but there was life here, it was buzzing and exciting and of course the sunny weather really helped to make Melbourne feel like a place we could stay for a while. We went off for a walk along the river area to see some of the sights and get a brief introduction by Amanda and Graham to the city they love. Our first stop was the Euerka building which like in most big cities you could go to the top of and get a great view from. It had a glass box that extended out in to the air that you could go in to look down at the ground blow whilst trying not to soil yourself, but having done several times in the US we decided it wasn’t worth the extra cost. Amanda and Graham paid for everything whist we were out that morning which we weren’t expecting at all. If we hadn’t have been so tired and felt a little like we were in a dream we would have put up more of a fight and insisted they didn’t need to do that. (thanks guys).

The view out of the tower was great, you could see right out over the sprawling city which went on for ever and then out to the sea and the beaches. It looked lovely and we couldn’t wait to explore it all. Amada and Graham showed us where they lived, way out of town towards a mountainous area to the south east of Melbourne - you could see why they didn’t wan to leave. After our sky high viewing we went for a walk further along the Yarra river, which extends through Melbourne and walked through the buzzing food festival which was going on. It seems we had chosen a great time of year to visit as we were in town for the food festival, the comedy festival, some Maybaline fashion show and the grand prix!!! By this point we were wishing we hadn’t arrived in our jeans and jumpers from chilly Christchurch so stripped as much as we could and added it to the bags we were already carrying. We felt awake enough to make conversation but I was certainly begging to wane. Nath however was wide awake as he was enjoying a well needed “perv” at all the brown legs that were walking around. They were every where even I had a good look. Ever girl seemed to have tiny shorts on and high heels - perhaps this is why Nath was enjoying Melbourne so much!!

Amanda and Graham then took us into the town centre which was just packed with people, street performers and loads of shops - how could we have missed all this!! It was getting on for lunch time so they took us to this great little Vietnamese noodle place where if you’re very lucky you get served with a smile. The food was great and cheap but the service reminded me of a sulking child, with your plates just thrown on the table with no introduction and no eye contact before the waiter sulked off to deliver more “grade A” service to someone else. We asked for a jug of water which took ages to arrive and then they looked at us like we’d insulted their mother when we asked for some cups to drink the water from!! Now there’s a novelty eh, someone wanting cups to drink out of! Our request was rewarded with more throwing of utensils as 4 plastic kids cups were dropped in front of us. This place was hilarious, I just imagined what it would have been like if we’d turned up with Annette and Chris! Nath refused to order the vermicelli noodles as he didn’t like the idea of food that had the word vermin in it especially from a Vietnamese restaurant - silly boy!! After lunch I think Amanda and Graham were getting wise to my tiredness, I don’t know if it was the dribble form my mouth or that fact I had nearly forgotten how to construct a sentence but we decided that perhaps now was a good time to go back to our hotel and get some sleep.

We had noticed that Melbourne is on a slope which we would have to walk back up to get to our hostel and in our jeans and jumpers this was not going to be comfortable so caught the free inner city tram so far and walked the rest of the way back. We were saying in the cheapest place I could find, which of course was a half hours walk to the centre of town. It had seemed like a good idea at the time but now I was wishing I had a fold out bed to just put out on the streets. We checked in without hassle and got to our little room which was advertised as a dorm but actually just had two single beds in it (and a fridge and tv -score) and I pretty much fell asleep straight away. I woke up feeling much better, Nath had tried not to sleep so not to mess up his body clock but I wasn’t that strong and probably felt better for it come the early evening. We watched some tv in our room which was great and had a dinner of subway sandwiches before going to sleep quite late.

The next morning we had decided to get some organising done as we had got to Australia and had no idea what and where we were gonna go. I had been researching everywhere else for months before we left and of course again as we moved on form place to place, but Oz had always been so far away I hadn’t started looking into it. I was convinced that bar the obvious like Ayres rock, great barrier reef etc, there wasn’t really much else to do. But reading up on Melbourne itself there was still loads to do here alone before we even moved out of the state. There is an element of stress I find from organising and researching everything that no one tells you about when you ask them about travelling. We have loved it and of course would encourage people to go travelling but I would also suggest that there are stresses that come form doing such a big trip. If we weren’t worried about cash flow then we may have been less stressed but not only did I need to figure out where we were gonna go, I also need to do it as cheaply a possible and make sure we were falling into any tourist traps. With all this in mind, and sitting in our room all day whilst the sun was shining (under the assumption that it was better to spend one day organising and miss the sun than miss lots of days trying to figure it out in parts) I was getting understandably grumpy.

In the end we called It a day, so many things depended on other factors that we didn’t have answers to yet, and trying to guess these things was just pointless. We were also starving so headed into the port area which was now a newly developed restaurant/hotel area for some dinner. We had been recommended by the very friendly owner of the hostel to go to a local Indian place but on finding it there was no way we could afford to eat at that price so in the end got good old fish and chips and watched the world go by. Yet again Nath got a good perving session in on a group of young girls (who I’m sure were jail bait but maybe I’m just feeling old) who had some kind of waitress/air hostess hot pant uniform on and legs that went on and on - The bitches!!

The next day we headed into town as we needed to get some boring things sorted, such as a bank account to put all our Elton cash into (and to perhaps use for jobs later) and new mobile phone sims. This we thought would only take a while leaving us the afternoon to do some site seeing- err no don’t think so!! Firstly although the bank account sorting was very painless and simple, we spent a good few moments laughing are arses off as the bank manager tried to wow us with “This new card that’s like a credit card but you don’t get credit it just takes the money straight away from your account” - “what you mean a debit card?” “yes it’s the next big thing”…..apparently debit cards have only just been introduced over here, bless em!. Anyway after the hysterics we spent most of the day trying to find the best mobile deal (no more great two hour calls to the UK for $2 like in NZ) we settled on a Vodaphone account so by the time all that was over we had missed most of the touristy things to do so headed back to the Yarra river for a chilaxing walk. It was a really hot day which seemed to get hotter in the afternoon, but it was still nearly 5pm so all the things we could have done were now shutting. We went for a walk along the river to find out some boat trip prices and found a great place where we could hire some bikes and ride round the parks and sites of Melbourne - perfect we thought, we’d do that the next day.

On walking back to the hostel, more awake than we had been the previous day, we stopped to watch the insane driving rule that exists in Melbourne. We thought the NZ left hand turn rule was stupid, but that only got the small trophy and a novelty pen compared with this rule. This rule we think is called a “hook turn”. When approaching a cross roads/intersection and wanting to turn right you don’t go in the right lane but stay in the left lane (yes left lane). Then when the lights go green you pull over to the far left of the intersection whilst all the other cars carry straight on. Then between the time your lights go red and the lights for the traffic perpendicular to you go green you turn right and floor it as the cars coming from the opposite direction making a hook turn do the same. Thus making the intersection look a little like a roundabout for 2 tenths of a second before the process starts again but for the perpendicular traffic. Confused? We were and scared!! We meant to video it so you could all see how crazy it was but forgot to in the end, sorry. (go to Youtube.com and search “hook turn Melbourne” to see a vid)

When we had met up with Amanda she had suggested we come and stay with her so she could show us the sights outside of Melbourne and we could keep her company as she was signed off work with a painful arm. This was a lovely and very helpful offer as when I had researched where we could stay for the rest of our week in Melbourne I had hit brick wall. Not only was the cheap place we were at completely booked for the week, everywhere was either full or at a ridiculous price and all because of the Grand Prix, which we hadn’t even realised was being held in Melbourne. We were stuffed for somewhere to stay and needed some “time off” from organising and eating subways for dinner so a stay at Amanda’s was a god send. The next day we had decided to go for a bike ride down to St Kilda, the beach area of Melbourne and then get on the train to where Amanda lived. So all dressed in m tiny shorts - hey if these youngsters can do it!! We headed into town in the early morning (well I say early, early for us - 10am) but found to our disappointment that the great sunny weather we’d had the last few days had disappeared. It was grey and pretty cool, so we decided against the bike ride and decided to ride the free tram and tourist bus instead and get ourselves acquainted with the area. This however was not quite as great as it seemed, and we could see why it was free. Both the tram and bus were packed full so there was no way you could even hear the commentary or see out of the really low windows.

With this idea having been a bit of a let down, I tried to save the day by getting some answers from the STA office which I had found on our days long research had a great deal for Tasmania (somewhere we were due to go in a few weeks). I asked the girl in the office about it, I say girl, she was a child and in between chewing bubble gum and playing with her Barbie she managed to get the same information I had gathered on my own. The worst part was when she turned to her friend and asked if there was an age limit on this particular tour - cheeky bitch!! So a little pissed off we left with our very helpful brochure and vowed not to return with further questions.

Never mind though the sun was now shining a little so we took a ride on one of the scenic boats down the Yarra river. I had spent many hours sorting out all the money off vouchers from every piece of info I could find and managed to get this half price - bargain!! The tour was however the last of the day and included a huge group of kids on some kind of after school trip, being looked after by slightly older kids, who were not really paying attention to how annoying they were being - or maybe that’s just how I saw it? The tour was nice overall, we headed out west bound towards the docks and then turned around and came back, I thought we would be going East up river as that was the most picturesque direction but west was still good. The best part was ducking every few hundred meters as we passed under some very low old bridges, the captain would sound the horn as a warning and watch everyone jump out their skin!!

It was now getting late and nearly rush hour and we still had to collect our bags form the hotel and make our way across town on the bus network to meet Amanda. The guy at the hotel laughed when I said what we were doing, suggesting that rush hour was not the best time. Yeah it was busy as expected but not half as bad as rush hour in Wycombe!! I could spend over an hour trying to get home at 5pm and that was only a few miles, so the trip didn’t faze us at all. Luckily we were at the first stop so got a seat whilst at later stops people tried to squeeze themselves on. The main difference I noticed to riding the train in OZ to the UK, was that over here if there was an odd seat in the corner, someone would happily jump over others to sit there. There was no awkwardness or polite passive acceptance, if there was a seat someone was gonna have it. Back home people would rather stand with heavy bags than be next to a stranger!! It was a long train ride really when we realised we had been on there over an hour and were still in Melbourne. Maybe some of the time was due to all the stops or maybe it is that Melbourne is huge and spreads for miles?!?

We got to the station and were greeted by Amanda in her little red car. At first I thought we were going to have to make two trips if we and our bags wouldn’t fit. I think Amanda had the same thought as her face dropped a little as she saw us dragging our luggage up the hill. But there was nothing to worry about, fitting it all in without to much hassle. We then drove the short distance back to Amanda’s house chatting all the way, excited about our first experience of Australian suburbia.

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Photos

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Views from the Eureka tower

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Grand Prix

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Tram going over the bridge

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Graham, Mandy and Amanda

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Mandy, Amanda and Nath

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Moonwalking prohibited!!

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The Eureka Tower

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Cheap lunch at the Vietnamese place – Check out the kids cups!!

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Its hard to have a Gaytime on your own! (Golden Gaytime) .................They called it what????

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Breakfast in bed, its not all hard work this travelling!

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mmmmmm fish and chips at the dock