Back in Melbourne

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Day 27: Hostel sweet hostel

Well, here I am back in Melbourne again and determined to see a little more of it than on my last visit! Having managed to sleep through the incredible snoring emerging from the bunk below me, I was finally awoken at 5am when the Irish couple woke up to go on their day trip. There was then no hope of getting back to sleep and when the snoring man finally got up three hours later, I listened with my eyes shut as he ironically spent the next 20 minutes getting ready to go out whilst being as quiet as possible so as not to wake me up! Having been reassured by people working at the hostel that leaving Alice Springs at 9:45 to get a 10:45 flight from an airport 20km away was actually allowing plenty of time, I got up half-an-hour later. Fortunately for me, the advice proved correct, and having got a minibus to the airport, it was a 10 minute queue to check in, a very relaxed security check which allowed friends and family to say goodbye to loved ones at departure gates, and then straight to the plane with noone even so much as looking at my passport. Gatwick it wasn't!

The flight was fine apart from a distinct lack of vegetarian food onboard, losing Qantas valuable brownie points. As with the last flight when I had not been given any veggie food, it was obviously my fault for not requesting veggie food and I really should say when booking and confirming flights. Grrrr! I was lucky that they managed to throw together the delightful meal of rice crackers, a roll and an apple. An 'imagine my horror' email is soon to be sent.

I arrived back at Lord's Lodge to be reunited with the rest of my luggage, and having lost my bed in the girls dorm, checked into another one (this one has a Swedish guy who plays the Ukulele!). It was a fairly sedate Friday evening, and after I had adequately stocked up on lots of yummy food at the local (huge) supermarket, it was time to catch up on sleep, with not even the guy snoring in the next bunk, nor the people crawling in in the small hours of the morning, keeping me awake for long.


Day 28: Election Day

I headed into town this morning to visit the huge undercover Victoria market, selling everything from boomerangs and hats, to tofu and pets. The sudden urge to buy a ginormous pineapple was soon regretted when I realised that I was then stuck carrying it for the rest of the day. It had seemed like a bargain at the time!

Walking across the Central Business District, election fever was all too apparent with locals turning out to vote, and some last minute canvassing going on. Overheard conversations were by-and-large politically themed

At the north side of town, I visited Carlton Gardens, a leafy park, home to the Royal Exhibition Building and Melbourne Museum. Although not hot, it was a nice day, and so I was quite surprised at just how few people were making use of the open green space available, with very few others around. After a walk around the nineteenth century Exhibition Building, I moved onto the ultra-modern museum next door, which among other exhibits, had collections relating to native flora and fauna in Victoria, Aboriginal history and artefacts from the region, and randomly, the history of the 'Miss Australia' competition. There was also a central outdoor-indoor area of native trees with assorted lizards and birds completing a mini-ecosystem within the museum, which was quite interesting and certainly different.

I couldn't stay in town for too long, since it was the weekly barbecue back at the hostel, and not one to forgo a free feed, I was back there in time to help with the final preparations (and wine opening) at 5pm for another good night to be had by all! With a few native ozzies glued to the television watching the votes being counted, there was cause for celebration when a labour win was announced (...apparently that's a good thing here).


Day 29: St Kilda's

Walking half-an-hour from the hostel, I reached the coastal region of St Kilda's, where Sunday brings a large arts and crafts market and stalls lined up along the esplanade. Now quite used to not buying anything, it was an interesting morning 'window-shopping'.

It wasn't really the right weather for sitting on the beach, with strong cool winds and cloud cover making it a bit nippy, so I went for a walk along the pier. Rebuilt in 2003, after being destroyed by fire, the views from the end looking back at Melbourne City were really fantastic. A little later and back on firm ground, I discovered Acland Street, a fabulous foodie street, packed with bakeries selling amazing cakes! I had a great time, picking out a giant slice of sachertorte and some almond shortbread. Obviously you can't have cake without icecream and so I felt obliged to goto one of the icecream parlours, and with flavours ranging from white chocolate, ferrero rocher and mixed berries, I was quite happy to be spoiled for choice.

Having had my monthly fill of cake/chocolate/icecream, I moved away from the bakeries and headed out of St Kilda's to Albert Park, where I joined cyclists and joggers completing a circuit of the lake and nature reserve. Despite the cool, cloudy weather, I was a bit peeved when I got back to the hostel to find that all my exposed areas had actually been burnt to a crisp. Not good (and quite painful too actually). It's just as well it wasn't too hot today. Yes, I should have put suncream on (but I'm still feeling sorry for myself)!


Day 30: Everybody needs good neighbours!

Rather excited and still looking a little bit dayglo, I got up early this morning and joined the 'Neighbours Tour' bus in the centre of town. Our destination, a suburb 20 minutes away, initially didn't appear to be that special and seemed indistinguishable from any other neighbourhood on the outskirts of town; however excitement levels on the bus soon increased as we pulled up at the gates of Erinsborough High School. The school is actually a fully functioning primary school so we weren't allowed in, but there were plenty of photo opportunities from the gates and many anecdotes from Donna our guide. Trying not to be too overwhelmed with the excitement of it all, we were soon on our way to Ramsay Street proper, actually a small close 5 minutes away in a residential area, where we had ample time to walk round in small circles taking photos! Again, the houses are all fully functioning and so out of bounds; apparently most of the actors have never been in the house that they 'live' in. The finale of the tour was a trip to the studios, where we got to see 'Grease Monkeys', 'Carpenters Mechanics', and met the legendary Susan Kennedy (no, I still don't know what her real name is).

After all the excitement of the morning's pilgrimage, it was back to cloudy Melbourne, and next on the day's itinery was the slightly more sedate visit to the National Art Gallery. I skipped the main temporary exhibition (entitled 'Britain'!), and instead opted to look round the permanent displays, which included rather a lot of european works from 17th-20th Century and a collection of modern art form all around the world (including Australia...and England). There was also a small photography exhibition, and as something slightly different, a collection of clothes from the 1980's. Definitely worth seeing, and I'm still tempted to go back and see the Britain exhibition!

With the weather brightening slightly, well it must have hit 20 degrees, I headed for a walk around the central shopping area, where I was very well behaved and despite an abundance of little dresses and warm fluffy jumpers, I only came away with a smoothie (which didn't last long).

Back at the hostel later, one of my dorm mates introduced me to some very cool chocolate. For anyone who knows Freddos, well they have those here, but with different sizes and flavours as well as the regular ones we get in England, but additionally they have Caramello Koala, and currently marshmallow Father Christmas and (most exciting of all), popping candy elves! They're great and I'm addicted (I did manage to have some other food for dinner too, but chocolate seemed to form the main part).


Day 31: Lazy Days

Apart from the excitement of discovering white chocolate containing multicoloured sprinkles (mental note: cut down on chocolate), it's been a fairly sedate day today. I started out on a mission to buy washing powder which turned into a stroll for a couple hours around Prahran, visiting the market and some of the boutique shops on Church Street. Unfortunately, the process of doing one's laundry requires a bit of patience at the hostel with 40 odd people sharing one machine, and having to fit usage around the routine washing of sheets/duvet covers etc. I got there eventually, and with top temperatures today in the 30's it didn't take too long to dry everything outside. The weather here is similar to England in it's unpredictability with daytime highs varying between 20 and 35 degrees (ok, not so similar to England), it makes deciding what to wear slightly challenging. At least I know to always wear sunscreen now! I was a bit jealous of the others in the hostel who headed down to the beach; still having several red bits (lovely), I decided it was probably best to stay in the shade and skipped the sunbathing.

I went into town this afternoon and went around some of the smaller lanes packed with cutesy shops and cafes. Since the town has a big Chinese population, I visited Chinatown as well, with an abundance of colourful restaurants and shops. It did occur to me that I've spent rather a lot of time in Melbourne and that there's still lots more I could be seeing on the coast albeit with limited time, so as much as I like the city and the folks at the hostel, I felt I should be moving on and booked a bus ticket leaving Saturday night to Sydney.

Back at the hostel, it was a lazy afternoon reading in the shade and planning the next leg of the journey. Unfortunately, I still didn't manage to get an early night, since I've been faffing on the computer (the only time the hostel computer is free is late at night) trying to sort out my photos. I'm still not there yet, but I'll hopefully get there at some point!


Day 32: Art and Music

I went to the Ian Potter Museum this morning. Predominantly an art gallery, the exhibitions included a wide collection of artworks including lots of contemporary stuff, aboriginal works, and a collection of women's clothes (which seem to be a popular theme in museums and art galleries here). It was good to see the contrast between the Western style of painting by Australian and European immigrants to Australia, and the aboriginal art also on display, which influenced by the European invasion, started to depict more animals and people in pictures rather than using symbols to represent them.

Back at the hostel, two of the people in the dormitory are leaving tomorrow, and so after some drinks and nibbles, we headed down to our local 'Pint and Punt' for some quality karaoke! It wasn't good and it wasn't pretty, but there were some amusing moments (the boys rendition of The Full Monty springs to mind)! After much wine and a few too many vodkas I got back, and with a big trip planned the next day, and not wanting to be in the position of running out of battery/memory card space again, I decided it would be a good idea to charge my camera battery (good move) and to transfer some photos from my memory card to flash drive to back them up (not such a good move). Unfortunately at three in the morning (I have no idea how it got to three in the morning) and after a 'couple' of drinks, this proved a little too complicated and ended up with me having photos on neither memory card or on back-up disc/flash drive. Big oops! I was bit upset when attempts to retreive the missing pictures and work out where it had all gone wrong proved unsuccessful, but rather than delete any more, I managed to remove myself from the computer and head back up to the dorm (where everyone was still up)!


Day 33: On the rocks

Somehow I made it out of the hostel before seven and was soon starting what proved to be a very long and painful minibus ride with eighteen others, out to the far-end of the Great Ocean Road. Unusually, with the exception of four or five passengers (German/Dutch/Finnish), the group was predominantly British, mostly in their twenties but with a few oldies as well (that's anyone over 35)!

I felt a bit better having managed to get a bit of sleep on the drive out to Tower Hill, a sunken volcano and conservation park where we had lunch surrounded by various wild animals including koalas, kangaroos and emus. All very cute, particularly the koalas which I think would make great pets; they're fairly low maintenance and although fussy eaters, they sleep for about twenty hours a day and don't really move around too much (right now, I'm actually quite jealous of them). After lunch, it was on to the scenic, sandy Logan Beach which used to a popular place for whale watching, that was until seismic testing started at a nearby port last year, which seems to have put the whales off visiting the area. After a quick gaze out to sea, we were back on the road and there followed several stops at different rock formations in quick succession. Not helped by tiredness, I'm having trouble remembering the names and features of the places we actually visited (although they were all very impressive). Midway through the stops, I did start to get flashbacks of GCSE geography field trips as we learnt about layered rock, caves, arches, stacks and stumps; fortunately there was no counting of pebbles and the rock formations were numerous and slightly grander than Dorset's examples (not that there's anything wrong with Durdle Door)! Our stops included the Bay of Islands where we could see some spectactular examples of stacks and stumps, followed by the Bay of Martyrs near Massacre Bay, where several thousand aborigines disappeared in a short space of time following European settlement, with the strong suggestion that most of them were encouraged over the edge of the cliff there. Then there was London Bridge, which used to be two arches connected to the mainland, but is now an isolated arch at sea since the nearest arch collapsed a few years ago. The collapse of the arch marrooned a couple for several hours until they were rescued by helicopter, with the whole event broadcast live to the nation. Unfortunately, although the couple were married, they weren't married to each other (the moral of the story being never to have an affair near limestone). Next stop was the Grotto, an arch in a small cove, followed by the beach for a swim in the sea, which turned out to be just what I needed to wake me up!

After a quick stop to buy some beers, we drove to the hostel, where dinner was a traditional ozzie barbecue which included the usual fab selection of veggie burgers/sausages/tofu/salads. Clearing up quickly after eating, it was straight back out again to view the Twelve Apostles as the sun went down. Although I felt slightly hard-done-by by the fact that there in fact only 8 or 9 visible apostles (stumps), I was appeased by a beautiful sunset, followed ten minutes later by the arrival of several groups of little penguins coming ashore for the night (also very cute, I may have to get one to keep my koala company). When the sun had well and truly disappeared, we headed back to the hostel in Port Campbell where it was quickly decided that we could all do with a few more beers in the local bar (usually just for local people). I survived until about half-eleven (which seemed quite good under the circumstances), before heading back to the hostel, where despite sharing with about fifteen others, I managed to sleep through until the following morning without waking up once.


Day 34: The Great Ocean Road bringing back childhood memories

Feeling a lot better after a good night's sleep and a few slices of raisin toast (they love the stuff here), we left the hostel at 8am and drove the ten minutes back to Twelve Apostles to see the rock formations by daylight in the morning mist. With visibility not great and having met the pilot in the pub the night before where he'd had a skinful, we all opted out of the helicopter ride, and instead headed to Gibson's steps, where we could see two of the Apostles from the beach. A little further along the coast, we went to explore a small cove, with the optional clamber across some rocks to reach a cave, locally famous for sheltering the only two survivors from the shipwreck of a ship carrying immigrants from Britain and Ireland in the late nineteenth century.

Moving inland, the next stop was at Maits rest, where we didn't actually rest, but went on an uphill trek through the temperate rainforest, learning all about ancient trees and the wierd and wonderful creatures we could meet in the forest if they weren't all so shy! It was then onto the little seaside town of Apollo Bay for lunch in a cafe by the sea, followed by a two hour drive along the Great Ocean Road, which was worth staying awake for, with amazing views of the coastline, as the road ran parallel to the shore leading back towards Melbourne.

Almost as exciting as a trip to Ramsay Street, I just about managed to contain my excitement as we pulled up at another of the tour's highlights, the 'Round the Twist' lighthouse. Also used in several films and other television programmes, it was a fine example of a lighthouse and resulted in a collective television nostalgia among the British bustrippers also in their twenties. (Anyone who's never heard of Round the Twist and wants to see what they've missed out on, goto www.roundthetwist.com)

We nearly made it to Bell's Beach, home to annual surfing championships, but were somewhat delayed by a flat tyre. In the end, we left Todd the tour guide to fix the tyre (at his request), and walked the rest of the way down to the beach to watch the few surfers who were braving the unseasonal chilly and cloudy weather.

Our stop for shopping at Torquay, the home of Quicksilver and Rip Curl, was cut short due to the earlier flat tyre and we were limited to all of ten minutes to peruse the shops, which is probably just as well because despite the clothes all being quite funky and summery, I'm not sure I need any more to carry and I don't think shopping for designer surfwear qualifies as a necessary expenditure on a backpacker budget!

Getting back to the hostel quite late, I was soon on a mission to try to retrieve the photos I had lost two days previously. It took some sorting, but looking through photos stored on the memory card, flash drive and computer hard drive (I'm taking full advantage of hostel facilities), I think I have retrieved all of them except about ten, so it didn't turn out so bad in the end. Despite trying to get an early night, queuing for the computer and sorting out photos took quite a bit of time, and since it was my last night, I wasn't going to bed without joining the others for a glass of wine, and I eventually made it back to the dorm at about three.


Day 35: Last Day in Melbourne

With checkout at half-nine, I was up bright and early to retrieve all my personal posessions from around the hostel and pack up. Despite feeling a bit jaded by the late nights (I'm definitely old before my time, looking forward to the day when I can have a cup of cocoa and get an early night), I was quite sad to be leaving the hostel. It's been a laugh and I've met a great bunch of people, but it's definitely time to move on before I take root there and join the longstay crew. I spent my last day at the botanical gardens, a half-hour walk from the hostel, with Kerry, one of the Canadian girls. The gardens were huge and quite stunning with a huge array of amazing flowers, cacti, trees and birds all set around a huge lake. The weather was perfect too, with lovely warm sunshine, and we spent several hours walking around, stopping for lunch at the restaurant there.

With an hour or two left, I went into town for a last wander round amidst an increasing number of Christmas decorations (including koalas/wombats/kangaroos with Santa hats!) and people playing/singing carols. It was then back to the hostel to say goodbye to everyone (who were also putting up Christmas decorations and had bought me an advent calender). Unfortunately I had to head off before the weekly barbecue and so I missed out on a final free feed.

I managed to find the right bus at the coach station, and was soon starting what proved to be a very long twelve hour journey to Sydney. There were two drivers, both as cheery as each other (i.e. not at all), who right at the start of the trip, greeted passengers with a long list of rules and associated penalties. Most annoying was having to wear a seatbelt despite having a vacant seat next to me. I'm sure it's for my own good etc but it would have been nice to have curled up and slept for a while.

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