Queen Victoria Market

---

Ello, and welcome back!

Yesterday I went to the beautiful shrine of remembrance and the royal botanical gardens and walked about 15/20 kilometres.
Today I think i deserve a nice day at the beach.. yea thats what I thought and thats exactly what didn't happen.

There are a lot of good things about solo travel but also a lot of down sides. I'd say one of the biggest up sides is being able to change your plans last minute and not pissing anyone else off with that decision.

So I had planned to go to St Kilda's beach for the day and just relax, maybe go for a short swim.
The weather was going to be around 25/30 degrees so it seemed like the ideal day. - Lets be honest all days are ideal to go to the beach in Australia haha.

I headed towards the shared kitchen in the hostel and made myself some peanut butter toast.

As I mentioned in previous blogs I had not got a towel yet so I decided I would head over to the market real quick and see if I could get a towel for the beach.

The market is about a 15 minute walk from my hostel and thus not to bad. I headed over towards the market and quickly realised the market was

a lot

bigger than i expected. I decided I might as well see the entire market as I may come across things I had never seen before. whilst walking through the market i noticed multiple sellers had towels but they all had the same ones. I wanted one that only one stall was selling. After going up and down the market twice I was pretty confident not one of them had a towel that other stalls did not have. I headed towards a stall and asked him how much a towel was.

My English is just fine and you'd think that being in Australia the sellers would also have a sense of English but nope.
He either had no idea what I was saying or he just didn't want to sell a towel. I said it was okay and headed to another stall. Most of the towel prices were 20 Dollars. These towels were not special enough to me to cost 20 Dollars. I wanted one for 10 😊.

I went to multiple stalls but all were 20 Dollar plus+, Still being quite bummed out that none of them had an original towel I gave up my search for a towel in the market, I noticed there were more shops over the road so I headed over there.
While going there I could here live music so I got distracted and went to the music.

There was a little band playing with drums, a flute and a didjeridoo. I stopped for a little to enjoy the music and filmed a little bit of it for my mum.

I continued on my way and came across a chemist, I thought to myself well i'm still sweating a lot and hadn't had a shower yet I better get some deodorant. I also decided to get some shampoo and shower gel whilst I was at it so at least I had something to use during my shower. I got one of those shampoo and shower gel combined things that is meant for children :P its supposed to be good for dry skin which is right up my alley.

I continued onto the shopping street and it seemed like main shopping street of Melbourne. I decided to keep walking and see where it would take me. I went in and out of a couple of shops but found nothing to special.
Whilst I was in one shop there was one guy and either he was an amazing actor or there was something else wrong.
He kept talking to himself and than replied to whatever he just said, it was a bit like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.
He was in the way of nobody but still quite a weird sight.

There was a bit of live music but nothing that really tracked my attention. I will say one thing that i noticed that a lot of people skate through the city here either using skateboards or Penny boards (which are Australian). It's nice to see people here have picked up skateboarding even though a lot of them should probably keep to walking 😉

I walked down the street and came across the street name Flinder street. I had noticed from all the towels I saw that there is a Flinder Station which is an iconic building of Melbourne.
I found the station and was disappointed to see they were refurbishing the building so there was not much to see of it 😞.

I headed into another street and came across a beautiful building which seemed to be used by H&M.
Headed into some really geeky shops but decided against buying anything thinking about my budget and space in my backpack. I was carrying around my bottle the entire time and got sick of carrying it and decided I wanted a small daypack that would easily fit into my normal backpack.

I headed all the way back from wherever I was to the market and went up it again, this time searching for a nice daypack AND a towel. I came across a stall that sold daypacks, I was wearing a shirt of one of my favourite tv series and the seller noticed it and said it was a good show. This seller was Australian and understood exactly what I was saying. He helped me find a good day pack for a good price and I went on my way.

I headed back to my hostel to find that I had just walked another 5 hours again this time through the city.
I had a shower with my new shower gel and shampoo combination thing and used my t-shirt as a towel and headed towards the lobby. I wrote my blog until it was about 18:00 and thought I should eat something.

I looked on Google Maps to see where an Aldi was so at least I could get cheaper food than the last night.
It was about a 15 minute walk so i headed there. Once I arrived I had no idea what I wanted to eat so decided I'd keep it simple so I got some bratwurst and buns and headed back to the hostel.

Everyone is eating posh and here I am eating hot dogs aha, they were quite well so all is good.
After I had eaten I watched some TV and quickly felt tired again, all this walking is not good for my nightlife HAH.
I let everyone know I was okay and talked a bit about my day and their days and headed up to bed.

So in the end I was planning on having a relaxing day on the beach but ended up walking about 5 hours through the city.

I will say one thing, Melbourne is a beautiful city and not at one point did i feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

---