Blogs from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 380

After a night of partying with the Interior Design students, I got picked up at 3am in the morning by KC and friends to head to Dandenong Mountains, 40km from Melbourne. No notice as usual! Jon was here visiting and wanted to see the sights so off we went to the mountains in the middle of winter 2001. We arrived close to 5am, took a walk in the freezing cold. The sight was amazing but too dark for our cameras to capture any decent photos. As the sun came up we headed to check out Puffing Billy, the 100-year-old steam train still running from Belgrave. Obviously we were too early for anything so we snapped some pictures and off we went back to Melbourne so I could snooze the day away.... read more

Geo: -37.5903, 144.514Father Ted Greensborough... read more

Geo: -37.8143, 144.963... read more

My arrival back in Melbourne was no where near as depressing as last time. It was, however, five in the morning so the hostel was closed, but they still used the same door code sequence and I was able to get in and watch music videos on Channel 10 until the reception opened. Unlike England, office buildings in Australia have no security. I suppose they don't have to worry about some idiot leaving bombs lying around. At lunchtime I went to the staff canteen in the State Bank Centre for a nice subsidised meal and met a couple of the people I used to work with. They obviously told the boss that I was back in town as next thing I knew, I got a call from the temping agency telling me that I was starting ... read more

I remember arriving in Melbourne well. The highway from Adelaide crosses over the Westgate Bridge, which gives an excellent view over the city. Melbourne has a very spectacular skyline, which makes London look very flat, but on this particular morning it was a very grey and drab skyline which made us wonder whether we had made a serious mistake leaving the tropics. We all got off the bus extremely depressed and ran for cover from the ice-cold rain. We met someone at the bus terminal who was looking for people to stay at his backpackers' hostel. Obviously getting a roof over our heads was the top priority, especially in this weather, so a load of us jumped into his mini-bus. The next priority was to start to look for a job so I got the tram ... read more