Melbourne

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We left Narooma, headed into Victoria and found somewhere to stay in Orbost. Much like Ingham earlier on in Australia, Orbost was a really small town, with a pub and just a few shops. It did have a museum though, but unfortunately it was closed when we arrived as it was a Sunday. We checked in above the pub, had a few mid-afternoon beers and met a few crazy locals (all middle aged women, but all were friendly and they bought us a each shot). I went to bed early leaving Nance drinking with the ladies.

We set off at 9am to Melbourne. We still had over 350km to cover and had to get our rental car back by 3pm. Nance slept the whole way, but we made it with an hour to spare. After dropping our car off, we got a taxi to our hostel. We had previously booked into a 16 bed dorm. We thought we had got lucky when they messed up and put us in an 8 bed dorm but we'd soon regret that. Still hungover Nance went to bed, i went out to look around Melbourne. It's great here. With wide streets, and trams everywhere it felt much more like a European city but was cleaner and far less busy. There are a lot of Japanese people here aswell, i felt like i was back in Asia at times. I was pleased to discover that we are only a 10 minute walk from the football stadium so i would have easy access to my game on the 2nd January. I passed that for now and headed to the Southern Star Observation Wheel (Melbourne's 'London Eye') to get an aerial look of the city. It was good to get up there but there is far less to see than in other cities. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting my bearings and walking the streets looking around. That night we were joined in our dorm by 3 Japanese people. One of these guys snores so loudly it is ridiculous. It makes me miss the guy in Narooma. Both Nance and I couldn't sleep with him there, so we ended up downstairs until the early hours. Luckily for us it's a 24 hour hostel. I eventually went to bed that night at 6am.

I slept through until midday on our second day in Melbourne (30th December). Still feeling tired, we went out for breakfast, did a bit of shopping and began looking for a job for Nance. There doesn't seem to be much about for her at the moment. I sneaked back for a Japanese free mid-afternoon nap and then went out again for the evening. But the next night he somehow got worse. This time he sounded like he was snoring underwater. I didn't know whether to be annoyed or impressed with him. So again, i sat up until the early hours - 5am this time - and got my sleep in the morning. Luckily, the next night would be New Years Eve so i'd be out and then only 2 nights left before i'd move on.

We had made no plans for New Years eve so decided to head to a nearby hostel called 'Bev and Micks' as it was a lot smaller than ours so we figured it'd be better for meeting people on the night. We got there just in time to discover that they were shutting the bar at 8pm to move to another bar south of the river. But we were offered a free ride there so took it (i had to walk home though which took over an hour!!). We met a couple of local guys from Melbourne and hung out with them for most of the night and i also met some really cool Japanese people, one of which was Kaori. I arranged to meet Kaori for sightseeing the next day but unfortunately was very drunk at the time so had a bit of a panic the next morning as i couldn't quite remember where the bar was that i had met her! After waking up with a huge hangover I managed to locate it in time and we spent New Years Day doing a bit of sightseeing.

The next day i visited China town and went to the Chinese Museum (it was the cheapest museum in my book!) and then in the evening went to my first A-league game. It was Melbourne Victory v Queensland Roar and it was not the best of games. A lot slower than the english game and the standard is much similar to a League 1 game back home, although being played out in a less than half full 60,000 seater stadium. I was joined again by Kaori and i don't think she liked it.

It is now 3rd January and tonight i fly to Tasmania. My flight is not until 9.30pm but i had to check out of my dorm at 10am so i have a lot of spare time on my hands, perhaps for a bit more sightseeing.

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Photos

Melbourne
A view of the city

The Telstra Dome
Home of Melbourne Victory and my first A-League game

Inside the Telstra Dome
My first A-League game! Melbourne Victory 2-1 Queensland Roar