Melbourne Part II

Reading back on my last blog I realise how bad my grammar is sometimes and for that I apologise! Oops!

So back to Melbourne! Luckily we managed to change our flights so we don't have to get a 15 hour Greyhound with a 1am change to get back here - phew and this time we are staying with the lovely Andy and Jemma who we met out in Fiji. Staying with friends is so awesome, kitchen, bathroom, sofa, large bedroom and no noisy traveller types or bad reviews to put you off the place! So thanks to all our wonderful Australian Hosts - Adelaidians Lucy and Katy, Melbournians Tom, Carys, Andy and Jemma, Sydnodians Steve and Clare - it has been wonderful spending time and drinking hours with all of you. It makes such a difference, and not just to our bank accounts!

So back in Melbourne, and with the luxury of a car we are able to go out of town a bit to see a few things we didn't do first time around. On our first night we drove over to Brighton Beach, sadly the fish and chip shop had already sold out at 8pm (rubbish), but we do get to enjoy the gorgeous beach at sunset. The beach is lined with colourful beach houses, which sell for around $500,000 each, CRAZY, but it is so beautiful here.

We spend another day over at the Yarra Valley, but in true style we get up super late and only manage to get to a few places to try some delicious wine before everywhere closes! The first stop in Chandon, which has the grapes and vines from the Moet and Chandon vineyard. The 'expert' who serves the wine shows us how to taste the wines properly and to 'spit' rather than 'swallow', like most of the visitors to the centre but the thought of spitting out wine not only upsets me but makes me want to gag (I hate the look of spit and only do it when way too drunk (see Anne-Marie for full story) so I stick to drinking to good stuff. We enjoy a lovely cheese platter here and a bottle of wine in the restaurant before moving on. The next place is ok, but I think I am now a bit slaughtered from drinking about half a bottle of wine plus all the tasters so I really don't know if any of the wines are good. I know the cheese is good though so we got a lovely selection of them before going on to the final and worst place of the day. The wine expert guy told us half of the wines on the 7 wine menu were rubbish and that wine tasting is rubbish and you should just drink it.... good to know.

Welcome to my vineyard!

Beautiful Yarra Valley

Classy drunk with my Brut Et Brut!

Another late start and another day out was spent in the Mornington Peninsula area. We get there just in time for lunch at 3pm, but the view is outstanding! Looking over the sea, harbour and hundreds of boats with the sun beating down we enjoy a massive seafood lunch. With very full bellies we find a nearby beach to fall asleep on. The sand is soft, yellow gold and the sea is choppy surf-beach style. The area which you can swim in is so small because of the danger of riptides that it's like looking at a very small Spanish/English occupied beach packed with people. I go for a paddle (and try to get Duncan involved but apparently it is too cold) and the waves are crazy. One moment it is lapping around my feet and then the next wave is so big it comes up to my stomach, I'm not tempted to go any deeper!

Lunchtime views

We do some fantastic eating whilst here in Melbourne and the fact that my clothes have all shrunk is testament to that! We have enjoyed an authentic Indian (which included nuts in every dish so I suppose Duncan didn't really enjoy it!), a lovely Thai which we ate sat on the floor (although most of the dishes included nuts and made me worry slightly about the language barrier in Asia as when we asked if the dishes were cooked with nuts the lovely lady said 'you want to take away?'), and some none nut based meals including at BBQ at St. Alberts Park, a gorgeous gourmet burger at the beach in St. Kilda's and a stodgy home-made Toad In The Hole, right here on the balcony at Andy and Jemma's!

It's BURGER TIME!

BBQ in the park

As you can probably imagine we have been out a few times for drinks whilst here but it still amazes me how pricey it is! A bottle of beer is $10 = 7GBP and a cocktail $20. Mostly we make like students and get very drunk at home before going out. One night we went out about 10:30pm and realised we were a tad hungry, so before hitting the bars we visited a local 'Pie Face'. These are lovely Pie shops chains all around. The one we went to was open, the lights were on but no-one was home...odd. We called out, no reply... The lights are on, the open doorway is open, hot water is running, the till is there and so is an open collection for the flood relief on the counter. We call out 'hello', 'hello', 'Pie people?' no response. Duncan climbs over the chair blocking the way to the seating to look around the counter and shout towards the back. No reply. We've been there about 5 - 10mins now and starting to worry that someone has collapsed out back or has been held up for the till money. Luckily on the counter is a contact number for the franchiser, he gives us permission to go round the back of the shop and check things out. Andy steps round with trepidation, followed by Duncan incase there are bad people there, opens the door and there is an 18-year old boy sat on the toilet looking very scared! We run and now know 'Pie Face' as 'Poo Face'.

Last night we actually attempted to go out 'clubbing'. The first club we went to wanted $35 to allow us in, erm no thank you! The second place was a bar down the graffiti-ed  backstreets with men peeing up most of the walls but with no dancefloor. The third was EuroTrash - three layers of young people, bad music and sweltering heat not to mention that horrible 'push past' everywhere you stand. The final place at 3am was half empty, with that 'these are the last drunk and single people around' feeling but at least we can finally dance although the slow r 'n' b and weird ability of everyone in that club to dance in a professional way meant that a few swaying dances with Duncan we were ready to go home. This is why we don't club much anymore! God we're old!

Getting the dance moves ready for our night out!

C'mon guys, let's get outta here!

Carl, Duncan's friend from Disney back home for those who don't know, has arrived in Melbourne! Just for 3 weeks but it means we get to pretend like we know something and take him on tours of the city. We spend many a fine hour drinking beer on Federation Sq (where I think one of the barmen looks like Edward Cullen - Twilight), walking along the river to the Casino where we waited to see the fire thrower machines at 6pm but it turns out they only start after dark, going around the shops and cafes of the walkways and stopping for tea and cake at a famous tea shop in the Block Arcade as well as dinner and drinks in another lovely cafe alleyway. We also enjoyed a few hours in the ACMI, which we later went back to with Jemma also. This is a movie museum which also features games (e.g. Nintendo) and things you can do and play with. The scary thing is the Nintendo Duncan had when he was a boy is now encased in a museum! We are so old. We play on a few computer games and queue with children to play Mario Kart on the Wii. The best bit though is the movie 'get active' section. There is a matrix camera set-up so you can do the frozen-in-mid-air-camera-sweep-around-thing, which Duncan and Carl do really well but I never seem to get the hang of it! My jump is always on the take off or landing! There is a freaky strobe lighting thing, blacked out room with a light projection and smoke machine, a make-your own flip book and a camera/screen that puts weird things on your shadow like long hairs or pointy scales. It's super-great fun and freeeeee!

Pinkies out boys!

LINK TO DUNCAN'S MATRIX VIDEO - http://www.acmi.net.au/timeslice/Timeslice.htm?file=ts-20110120-af6a703eae31a10d0282cf48e327f2a8.flv

Weird camera projection thing

Original Sonic - oh yes!

Unfortunately, whilst we are staying with Andy and Jemma their home is burgled. The odd thing is the place is tidy when we get in and nothing obvious is wrong so it takes us a few hours to even notice. There is no sign of a break-in and nothing big has gone. It feels so unreal like the stuff is going to turn up any minute but it doesn't. The police arrive the next day and guess who are number 1 suspects? That's right - the 2 travellers who they just met a few months ago who are staying and have a key and it happened on the first day we didn't spend together as a group. Great. Things are a bit awkward and stressful for a while but luckily Jemma and Andy don't think it is us. It is just so horrible thinking of a stranger coming into their home and taking such valuable things to them that are irreplaceable like antique jewellery. And it is even worse not knowing what to do to make it better, so we clean and make tea. :(

Also, whilst we were here Duncan had to have a tooth out (either that or a root canal at $1300). This was painful for him but I think it was mostly painful for me having to listen to him going on and on about the how much his mouth hurts! Haha! Love ya really honey.

So to end on a high in Melbourne and Australia. It is Australia Day! (why doesn't England make an effort like this for St. George's Day I ask you?!) We generally miss most of the parades and events going on due to getting up late (again) and trying to get a bit of Asia organised so we get over to Federation Sq with just enough time to enjoy the live bands, dancers, singers and the weird Australian born, Chinese looking, German accented presenters of the festival event, as well as blagging great seats for the fireworks. We fight these off by playing Billionaire for 3 hours and blocking the way of children who look like they might steal the ledge... now to be fair they should probably be at home in bed or doing homework or they should have arrived earlier or grown taller already, not my fault is it?! Actually, Karma kicks in and it turns out the fireworks go off on the river behind the building we have a great view of....

Saving seats in Fed Sq

Band and crowd at Fed Sq

We do manage to scoot round to the river to catch most of the fireworks and Chris (Jemma's brother) says there is no such thing as Australia Day really and the fireworks are just the Aussie's way of saying goodbye to us. I love that! We'll miss you all loads but alas we must leave to miss you at all.

And we leave with a bang!

BYE BYE AUSTRALIA!

Sunny(?) Sydney

So my last few blogs were a bit rushed and I stupidly forgot to tell you about my favourite 2 things about Australia. I guess you should have a favourite thing or top 3 but things are a bit upside down here in Australia. So my 2 favourite things are potato twirls...mmmm. They are potatoes cut into a twist, put on a wooden stick, deep fried and then sprinkled with flavouring e.g. chilli, cheese, salt... although mine got dropped in salt rather than sprinkled, ah well all potato is good potato.

The second thing is drive thru bottle shops. In Australia they don't sell alcohol in supermarkets but in separate bottle shops (usually next door to the supermarket), how inconvenient! However, they make up for this inconvenience by allowing you to drive into a shop, have the seller ask what you want, you pop the boot and they put it in. You don't even get out of the car! AMAZING! Personally I think this is a great idea as I find it really difficult to walk when drunk.

(As a side note I forgot to mention that I have been breathalysed 3 times in Australia already! That doubles my record to date.)

So onto Sydney!

On our very first night in Sydney we went to the 'Best Bar 2011' with our new hosts Steve and Claire. 'Best Bar 2011' - It's January! How can they possibly know this is going to be the best bar in 2011? How presumptuous. They're probably right though as the dead cow head on the wall is definitely a winner if you ask me...

Maybe our presence made it the best bar in 2011?

A couple of days later after recovering from hangovers that the devil created we decide to venture out into Sydney and see the sights. I am so excited to finally see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge but when we get there they look just like they do on TV and I don't get the magic 'Disneyland is real' feeling I expected. We take a few obligatory pictures, and many many more throughout our stay in Sydney all from different angles and with different weather backgrounds - a nice collection is on Facebook for viewing! We also go for a wander through the botanical gardens to Mrs Macquaries chair (a rock shaped like a chair) but the hordes of Japanese tourists queuing to take photos put us off from getting any of our own shots. Sorry.

Over the next few days we spend a lot of time visiting travel agents to try planning and booking our route up the East Coast to the Whitsundays and Fraser Island using the Greyhound Bus. I really can't decide who my favourite travel agent was - the one who used the best sales lines ever 'I'm dropping my pants with these offers', 'This price can only be guaranteed if you book now (unless you leave a $50 deposit then we can reserve them until tomorrow)' and 'Get out and come back on Saturday if you want this price' or the agent who to show us pictures of the Whitsundays turned his computer round, closed down a window, to reveal underneath a picture of a lady with her 'b-jango' out on full display. Nice. Or maybe my favourite agent has to be the one who sold us Greyhound tickets to Cairns but neglected to mention that the route wasn't running due to flooding. Ah travel agents - you gotta love them!

So Sydney. this place is humid by the way. Not sunny, humid. It is so deceiving - you look outside, it is grey, you wear jeans, you fail. No seriously there is hardly no sun for the majority of the time we are here yet it is the hottest place ever! We go on a day trip to the Blue Mountains, which apparently has beautiful views but as you can see from our pictures we mainly saw clouds and mist and fog.

We did go to a cool place called Flat Rock -over the years people have engraved their initials and date of visit into the stone, which is so amazing seeing dates from so far back. We also went for lunch at a nice town called Leura and to Scenic World where we travel across a valley in a glass bottomed sky lift and down the mountain on the steepest railway ever (I freaked out when I was on it as I thought it was going to go really fast like a rollercoaster, it didn't and I felt a bit like a fool for getting so scared!).

Looking unreasonably scared...

Glass bottomed skylift

 Back up at the top we frolic around with the Three Sisters sculptures (they are really ugly sisters) before going back to Sydney on the ferry.

Back in Sydney we meet Steve at the Opera House Bar, which is absolutely PACKED with the work crowd. Great people watching. We then go to the Summit bar, which is a revolving bar and restaurant high up. We are lucky and just catch the sun set and Harbour Bridge with all the lovely lights on. I also commandeer a new umbrella (I left mine in a bar - d'oh) as it got caught on the window when someone put it down so as we moved around it was suddenly at our table instead - score!

View from Summit Bar

This umbrella turns out to become very useful indeed, as Sydney seems to be enjoying lots of tropical rain storms at the moment. This only happens once every 15 years so how lucky are we to be experiencing this rather than a baking hot summer?! We went out to meet Felicity for drinks one fine evening, and before we knew it the rain was hammering down. We waited for ages under a covering, laughing at people running past with see-through tops from the rain, until we finally gave up going into town and found a random cafe in a park where I got this lovely shot of the rain. (Yes, I have actually written a whole paragraph just to get this photo into my blog! - anyone feel that sledge hammer?)

Skegness, well that's a beach that's nothing like Bondi, which incidentally is where we spent a few hours one day*. The sun is finally shining and we need to go to a famous Aussie Beach! And it is just like I imagined...golden sand, awesome surf, and people with great bodies wandering around in bikinis. Unfortunately we can't stay as long as we'd like as we have tickets for the Sydney and Bondi tourist bus which have a time limit on - boooo. So back we get on the big red bus around town. The big red bus, by the way is a bit crappy. Normally I like these buses as they show you the sights with little walking and you can hop on and off as you fancy. However, this buses pre-recorded tour guide sounds like an Aussie Chris Tarrent (ACT) and the timing of the talk is slightly off... for instance (please add your own ACT accent) 'If you look to the right you can see an amazing view of the Sydney skyline' we look to the right just in time to see the skyline disappear behind trees before we go back down the hill. oh.

Bondi Beach

On the Big Red Bus going through a tunnel!

Finally we decide we must leave Sydney and start going up the coast (before the flooding gets so bad we can't get to Brisbane ya see). Leaving our King's Cross, prostitute surrounded hotel we get the Greyhound bus North to Bondi and Brisbane. 7pm we get on the bus, 10pm we get off at a rest-stop - where a woman drives frantically into the petrol station, jumps out of her car screaming, to be followed by a tarantula crawling out after her! - 11pm we pick up more people, 12am the bus drivers swap over, 1am I can't sleep, 2am the driver is talking loudly about floods on the phone, 3am we get diverted due to floods, 4am we stop behind lorries as far as the eye can see as floods have cut off the road (20m flood), 6am we turn around, 8am we change buses with the option to stay in Coffs Harbour (and wait for the floods to go) or go back to Sydney, 8:30am we are back on the road to Sydney, 10am breakfast stop, 11am sleep at last, 2pm Independence Day begins, 3:30pm Independence Day ends, 4:30pm we stop back at the original rest-stop, 6:30pm we go back over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 7pm we arrive back in Sydney. Super.

24 Hours on a bus...looking good

Flooded river

Lorries waiting to go North...

We do get to adopt a very cute boy whilst travelling though. He is 12 and travelling alone, with no extra cash to buy breakfast and lunch. I also love that he told us his iphone had 10hours of battery left ‘if’ he didn’t use it so he wouldn’t need to save any numbers in our phone (we offered just in case he needed to contact his sister in Sydney). 6 hours later he asks if he can borrow our phone ‘cause he used his battery playing games. Classic.

On the plus side back in Sydney we get to do a couple of things we missed first time round including visiting the Paddy’s Market (not as buzy as Victoria Market in Melbourne), seeing a couple of street performers at the Rocks (not as good as Edinburgh Fringe street performers), climbing the Harbour Bridge for more views of the Opera House, visiting the Rocks Night Market (yummy cupcakes), having a delicious breakfast at Wooloomaloo Harbour and my favourite day in Sydney yet ...

...wandering around Darling Harbour in the gorgeous sunshine, visiting the Wildlife centre where we see kangaroos, koalas, emu’s, butterflies, beetles, ants, a working bee hive, stick insects, the world’s deadliest snake and spiders as well a HUGE crocodile, which was so still it looked fake. This was followed by a very happy hour (5 – 8) with Felicity, looking over the Darling Harbour - beautiful water, light reflections and $4 sparkling wine....mmmm. I then got lost in a huge shopping mall, laughed too loud at a street performer and had a McDonalds. It was all good.

Now we are going back down South to Melbourne, which is kinda my favourite Aussie city anyway so all has worked out AND we get to see Andy, Jemma and Carl as well as Carys and Tom again...now just pray for some sunshine!




* Paragraph opening line supplied by C. Harvey 2011

Christmas and New Years in Melbourne

It is Christmas Eve and it is sunny!

It is also Tom's birthday so we start the day with a trip to the beach for Tom, followed by a picnic in the park and a night out in Melbourne. The park is so great, they have gas bbq's set up for anyone to come along and use whenever they like! They are all clean, modern and not even vandalized like they would be in England! The day is wonderful and the bar at night is really lovely, a kind of indoor/outdoor garden themed place.

Playing Poi

Throw another shrimp on the Barbie!

AND IT"S CHRISTMAS! We settle in for the day, all wearing matching red and santa hats! Duncan and Carys cook up a storm in the kitchen and I busy myself making the room all candle-y! We even find a good Christmas movie to get in the mood too. Such a lovely day with friends and until we opened the blinds it was as dark as Christmas would be in England! We got lots of lovely gifts for Carys and Tom to say thanks for having us stay over Christmas and I even got Duncan a special gift...a bottle of coke zero. The pure romance of it!

Lovely Puds you got there Duncan!

Family Portrait!

oooh for me? You shouldn't have!

We spend the next few days in Melbourne exploring the city some more, visiting the Victoria Market in the day (where we buy some proper tourist stuff like boomerang and Koala's and get get a picture painted for us by a local artist), take the tram ride around the city centre, visit the casino and riverfront, visit the local St Kilda Beach and enjoy a local football match Melbourne V Newcastle! The Victory (Melbourne) win in the final minute..woohoo (although we were sitting in the away section so we couldn't be too loud about it!).

Our picture being created

Victory win!

Melbourne City

Just before New Years Carys' family arrives so we unfortunately have to move to a city hostel. and it is grim. Our room smells of damp and urine at the same time AND the window has been open all day. There is a foot of space on 2 sides of the bed but we notice it isn't quite against the wall so we pick it up to move it and the whole thing collapses!
After 45minutes they figure it can't be fixed so we get moved into a huge dorm room, with ensuite, and we get it all to ourselves! yay!

It's New Years Eve and the weather has hotted up considerably! It is 40 degrees out and even though it is windy the wind feels like a hair dryer or fan heater on full! It is quite choking. Luckily this means it is quite warm all night long so we can enjoy sitting on Tom and Carys roof overlooking the city for some fabulous views of the rooftop fireworks in the city and by the harbour!  It's a lovely evening and a great way to see in the New Year - warm and drunk. (oh and I stole a party blower from a passing child - haha)

Happy New Year!

The drunken lot!

Bye for now and up the East coast we go!

Remember loads of pictures are on facebook!