Advertisement
Published: March 16th 2011
When you first decide to enter the odd world of campervaning you expect the problems to be threefold. Firstly; that there would be a complete lack of space. Secondly, that there would be no amenities and finally that you would be at the beck and call of the elements either being too hot in summer or too cold in winter.
All of these problems can be resolved by buying better and better campervans that are larger, have a toilet and have climate control. We were therefore happy to get a larger van then expected when we first collected it in Sydney with its own on boards shower and toilet, a bit more space and air conditioning/heating in the compartment.
It was therefore even more annoying when, shortly after finishing the last e-mail/blog and sorting out the bed that we realised the air conditioning was broken and now leaking all over the bed. What followed was not only a poor nights sleep (largely due to the rain which sounds ridiculously loud in the campervan), but a boring day at the Apollo office in Melbourne trying to get the problem fixed, only to be told to come back on Monday. Combined with a few problems in finding a camp site in Melbourne, (the first one had no space due to flooding) we actually achieved very little on the first day in the city. The only point of note was that we went to a drive in, in our campervan. We saw “Green Hornet”, which is actually a funny film.
The next day we started to explore the city properly and hopped on to the local tram in order to make our way into Melbourne City Centre. We then got a free tourist shuttle around the City which also came with on board commentary explaining a bit of the history about the sights we were seeing. We had lunch in the park, where there seemed to be an MG owners show going on with lots of old and new MG's on display.
We then did a walking tour around the centre of the city that was shown in the guide book before hoping on the tram again and heading over to St Kitts so that we could see the penguins as they returned at the end of the day to nest in the breakwater. It was quite a tiring day as we managed to fit in quite a lot but after having achieved very little the day before it felt good to actually get to explore Melbourne properly.
The next day we took the campervan back to the Apollo office where they have hopefully now fixed the air conditioning by tightening some of the connections to try and stop the water from leaking. We will only find out the next time it is needed whether or not it has actually worked. We have not needed to use it since it broke because it has actually been so cold at night that we needed to use the duvet and still could have done with some heating (which we might try now that the all in one system is repaired.)
Steph was already booked on the Neighbours tour for later that day and we hoped that I could get a ticket once we knew that the van had been fixed. Otherwise I would have stayed with the van whilst she went off on the tour. Unfortunately, whilst the van was fixed in time, there were no more tickets left. I therefore spent the afternoon in Melbourne. I picked up a thin fleece, to help combat the cold, and also had a look around in the immigration museum. It was an interesting museum, though the theme of it was slightly lost on me. I think it was trying to explain the affect all the different cultures have had on Australia when they immigrated (although it did seem to gloss over Western immigration to the Country) but I could be entirely wrong. I then tried to make it to the war memorial in the park, but gave up and headed back to meet Steph.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.105s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0622s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Angie1987
Angie
Happy Travelling
Hi William and Stephanie, I am planning to vacation to Melbourne and I really enjoyed reading your blog. I know know to take jumpers as Melbourne can be quite cold and that the walking tours and buses with the commentary on the sights that you see seem like a fantastic idea. Glad you got the campervan fixed- that must have been a real pain, Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip Angie