Melbourne Times & Mardi Gras

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I shall attempt to cover the past several months since my last update as quickly as possible; this isn’t going to be overly easy though, so forgive me…


July to Early December

I lived in Melbourne Connection Backpackers hostel from my second day in Australia, 5 July until early November. During this time, several different groups passed through, but this never stopped the hostel from feeling like a family away from home. It is probably not the nicest hostel in the world and not the cheapest either, But thanks to being in Melbourne, from being small and due to the many people who couldn't persuade themselves to move on. There is a Melbourne 'thing'. I have a bit of a theory though about it. Basically it's too easy for people to go travelling, although there is no real thought process. Any mug can and will just fly to some places like Thailand or Sydney, it's just so easy and so done. Therefore, even will places nearby, travellers have actually had to put at least a bit of thought into going, therefore, at least in my opinion, they are going to be a little bit more interesting! Possibly big headed, but seriously, go to a backpackers in Sydney and join the lack of imagination.

I met Jess during my first week in the hostel and by the time she left Australia to go back to Sweden at the start of December, she was pretty much living with me in my house in Brunswick, North Melbourne. My house was a typical Aussie Victorian bungalow, massively high ceilings with nice big rooms, it was a pretty sweet place.

Pete came to stay all the way from Hereford and brought John and Gemma with him, the three of them are mates from uni days. For Pete's visit I finally had a week off work (my job as a fake accountant) and was able to be a tourist again. We saw some of the sights in the city, drank a fair amount and took a road trip to Phillip Island with Jess. Phillip Island was the first place I saw some proper Aussie wildlife, giant freaky bird things with blue necks, emu’s (not a creature you should show your seed-bag too without some sort of impenetrable divider between you), koalas (lazy), wombats (pointless perhaps, but awesome), along with wallabies’ and kangaroos.


Jess' Leaving

Jess and I took a road trip to the Grampians (a mountain range) and along the Great Ocean Road (a road). Doing a road trip in Oz is a total win, virtually no traffic outside of the cities, just big empty roads and the horizon. On occasion a kangaroo or rogue deer in our case tries to get in your way for some kamikazee fun, but not too often. The Grampians have some stunning open views over Victoria and it was strange just how amazing it felt to get out of the city. We stayed in wooden lodge that came complete with roaming kangaroos to watch in the morning from the veranda.

After the Grampians we headed down to the Great Ocean Road. I am mildly sad for Britains part in giving Australia such poor place names. It's sad that we couldn't come up with names that we hadn't already used in the UK like Swansea, Wye River, Brighton and Malvern when we could've retained the excellent aboriginal place names like Wooloomooloo??? Either way, the Great Ocean Road deserves its name, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The road follows the south coast from Warrnabol to Melbourne, revealing stunning beach and cliff views regularly. We drove, stopping at viewing points and ate some good chicken and chips in Apollo Bay. We planned on driving back along the coast all the way to Melbourne so we could cross the River Wye (seriously!), but needed to get back to Melbourne as soon as possible so we took an inland detour. En-route we did stop at the lighthouse from Round the Twist (go early 90’s kids television) and passed through a Eucalyptus forest full of koalas - we even got to see one move!

The next day we went on a wine tour around the Yarra Valley with Lisa and Molly. Fairly straight forward to imagine how this day went...

Jess’s time in Australia came to an end and saying goodbye was a pretty brutal time, visas are a bitch. Hopefully we'll see each other again when I return to Europe.


After…

Things changed completely after Jess left and I spent most of my time with Rick and Emma. After they quit working for IAMA during January, things changed even more. The loss of them to our office altered the office dynamics. Due to the mass incompetence of the management, no-one with more than 3 braincells was hired to replaced either of them. This led to a situation where I became closer friends to my boss Khang, Joan and Canadian Julia. Being Canadian, Julia has a strong sense of sarcasm and we started to go out drinking on a regular basis for some good post-office bitching sessions.

I spent Christmas in St Kilda, in a park near the beach with a huge group of people for a BBQ and followed it up with a drunken house party in the eve. Went to an almost identical house party on new years and watched the fireworks from the balcony of the 12th storey apartment.

Spent Australia Day (26th January) in Princes Park near my house with Rick, Emma and a bunch of their Aussie mates. It was a glorious sunny day – BBQ, beers and football, you can’t get much better than that. I wouldn’t be surprised if more meat is consumed on Australia day than any other day of the year, I can still taste the lamb chops…


Moving Out of My House

1st February I moved into Rick and Emma’s flat for their remaining time in Melbourne. They basically looked after me, feeding me an impressive amount, always appreciated. They then set off for Tasmania in a camper van for a week, before coming back through Melbourne and heading up the East Coast. I am hoping that if claiming my tax back goes well, that I’ll be able to join them for a week or two before they leave the country. They are not my longest friends in the Southern Hemisphere, that award goes to Ciaran, but they are my closest friends.

I moved back into the hostel… not something that I ever imagined doing. I planned on moving into a different hostel, not Melbourne Connection again, but Melbourne was incredibly busy and I had little choice. Law of the sod meant the only bed available was Jess's, but fortunately, in the room were Jon and Rob who had been in the hostel when I was last there and had both just got back after trips away. There were a few others scattered in the hostel still and it was good meet up and reconnect. By this point in Feb, a fair number of my nights out involved me and Julia going out for drinks after work – she is both very persuasive and can drink like a fish. On nights not out with Julia, I either chilled in the hostel, or went out with the people there. Almost every weekend during the summer in Melbourne there is one festival or another going on. Julia and I went to the Sustainability Festival and amongst things, this involved hiding from weird vegetable folk who were trying to force-feed us carrots. We later tried Thai Chi led by an old Chinese master. We also went to the Moomba Festival and watched a few bands and water skiing.


The Storm

One of the last weekends in Melbourne a huge storm hit, I have a feeling this reached UK news in some form. Sitting in the TV room of the hostel I received a message from Julia to let me know that the sky had turned evil and it looked like a storm was about to start. Next, in true Hollywood fashion, the satellite reception on the TV died on all channels. Next second, a sound like a lorry driving over the roof began. I got up and ran downstairs to check out the rain, whilst the others in the room looked at me confused as they assuming it were something even worse than rain – the noise was that loud. Hailstones the size of squash balls was being flung at the ground in a monsoon level storm. The hailstones ripped leaves off trees, damaged multiple buildings and set off security alarms across the city. A homeless drunk outside the hostel got picked up by a panicking ambulance crew whilst he was content to be buried underneath ice and water. Flinders Street (one of the 4 borders of the CBD) flooded, leaving trams, trains and cars stranded. Me and Julia went out for a wander once the main storm had ended and laughed at a group of Asian teenagers stuck on one of the trams. Everyone else had got off, but being overly fashionable Asian girls, they didn’t want to get wet so waited on board for a few hours instead like complete mugs.

I guess I forgot to mention that the hostel disintegrated. The ceiling of the largest room caved in, but the build up of water ran throughout the roof of the hostel and leaks sprung everywhere. It was literally raining indoors in some sort of apocalyptic scene.


Sydney Briefly

I flew to Sydney 27th February for my last day of working at IAMA. I was going to work one day to train the Sydney office how to follow the new accounting procedures that I had put in place. Fortunately, the 27th February was Mardi Gras and I went to stay with Lyndsay who I had not seen since I was in Singapore. Went out with Lyndsay and her friend Mel and had a completely surreal night. Not been in a place so different since landing in Delhi. The photos that I’m tagged in on facebook do it more justice than words can. Went to Bondi beach the next day – enjoyed the thunderstorm that hit whilst we were there and got through my last day of work with shockingly few problems.


More Goodbyes

Had another sad goodbye, this time with Julia, she was heading back to Canada the day after I left Melbourne. Canada is now another place that I will attempt to make it to someday.

Leaving Melbourne was really hard; it is probably my favourite city in the world. There is always something going on and most Australians are so friendly that to someone from the UK it can seem odd. The future and settling down is a long way away, but at the moment I would love to be able to immigrate to the city one day. In the meantime, it’s off to Tasmania to do fruit picking, I think…..

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Photos

Soggy Swedes
Jess & Lisa at the Latino Festival

Couples Great Ocean Roadtrip
Me and Jess at the 12 Apostles lookout

Christmas in Oz
Emma & Rick chilling in the sun

Top Gun Night
In the Royal Botanical Gardens, on an inflatable screen!

Crazy Storm Hits Melbourne!
Jamie bails on taking photos after being obliterated by giant hailstone

Mardi Gras
Bunny Girl Mel at Sydney' Mardi Gras

My Home
Melbourne CBD skyline from Clifton Hill (thanks for the guidance Julia!)

Crown Casino
Sun setting over the Yarra whilst BBQing with Rick & Em