Category Archives: Travel

Day Twenty – Melbourne – Markets, Casinos and Asylums

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Breakfast this morning was noisey and crowded with (most of) the family back together. It involved a lot of discussion about all of our plans and I realised how hard it is to organise seven head strong adults who all have things they want to do but we managed it.

We started off by taking the city tram up to the Victoria Markets and wandering around a quest to find Christmas presents. I had a few successful bugs and really enjoyed the market atmosphere. I sort of remember the market from the last time I was in Melbourne. Afterwards we headed for a drink all together.

We then took the city tram to federation square to take a look around and there was an African culture festival on which was pretty cool. There were loads of stalls dedicated to African food, clothes, culture, arts and a stage hosting African music. We then walked down the south bank before heading up into the city lanes. We met up with Matt and Emily who had separated from us after the market and stopped at a cute cafe in the lanes for some grub and coffee.

Before heading back to the hotel we went to a cool rooftop bar which reminded me of the Kensington Roofgardens. Madam Brussels markets itself as an English summer on a rooftop in Melbourne. We had summer cocktails served to us on a garden lawn by waitresses dressed in tennis gear. Really fun and quirky.

We then headed back to the hotel to get ourselves rested and prepared for dinner with Angie’s friend and her parents. We went to an Italian restaurant naked Yak where we had some really good food and great company with Cristina, Neil and Helen. After dinner we took a walk down the riverside to the casino which is pretty renowned. I remember the casino from the last time in Melbourne because of the fire shows every hour where turrets of fire let off by explosions of fire. It’s definitely a sight worth seeing.

We headed into the casino to see a Christmas show and then headed upstairs to grab a drink. The whole experience proved a bit too much for my parents so they headed home and we spent some time drinking with Cristina, Neil and Helen. After a couple of rounds of the fire show we then decided to head to the Croft Institute. Cristina, Neil and Helen left us so the boys, girls and I headed over there. Definitely a bar worth checking out. The whole thing is set up like a hospital/asylum. The drinks are served with syringes and the toilet has medical equipment in it including a hospital bed. Very cool. We ended the night here drinking plenty of syringe drinks and dancing the night away to Taylor Swift. The end of the night resulted in a photo shoot by some of Melbourne’s famous graffiti. (Pictures to follow).

Day Nineteen – Melbourne – Surprises and Angry Neighbours

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Finally I had a great breakfast. It was so good to have a proper hotel breakfast so I went to town on a good vegetarian fry up. We spent most of the day wondering around town checking out all of the Christmas decorations. It’s pretty safe to say that Australians don’t really know how to do Christmas. Federation square had domes of polystyrene to make ‘snow’ but it was just quite pathetic.

The afternoon was spent doing some shopping and I managed to get my secret Santa present. My dad got himself a haircut so my mum and I treated ourselves to a manicure. It’s definitely nice to be spoilt a little bit after three years as a student and now travelling. Everything is always on a shoestring.

My parents were still jet lagged and he huge breakfast meant that we weren’t too hungry so we had a small meal in the hotel and then waited in anticipation for the boys and girls to arrive. I hid in the cupboard and waited. Everyone came in to have champagne and after a little while I jumped out of the cupboard and surprised Ed and Angie. Ed didn’t have too much of a reaction but Angie jumped out of her skin screaming which was a great reaction to make. We cracked open the champagne and started to catch up. Not before too long a knock at the door came and a very aggressive man told us to be quiet and that there should not be more than two people to a room. So reluctantly we moved the part downstairs.

Catching up was good and it was so nice to have the boys around. After polishing off three bottles of champagne we all went to sleep and I slept happily.

Day Eighteen – Melbourne – Meeting the Parents

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My sleep was disjointed with regularly intervals of waking and when I fully awoke I wasn’t quite sure where I was. I showered to open my eyes and packed my bags to check out. After checking out and storing my luggage I took a stroll down to Centreplace to find somewhere to eat breakfast. I found a cute little cafe and ordered myself som healthy juice and porridge with poached pears. I love poached pears. I took time to sit in the hustle and bustle of Melbourne, write my blog and write in my MakeItCount diary. It was damn pleasant and nice to be able to sit outside without sweating all my clothes off.

I then walked into federation square and took a look around before hiking up to the hotel with all my bags to meet my parents. I spent the afternoon chilling with them in the rooftop pool and relaxing in the hotel. We then went out for dinner at Mrs. Parma’s a restaurant with specialises in parmigianas. It was a nice night but I was glad to get a good nights sleep due to excitement for seeing Ed and Angie the next day.

Day Seventeen – Townsville to Melbourne – Crystal Creeks and City Streets

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Matt took a half day off work today so I spent the morning packing up my bag to leave and then around lunchtime Matt came back from work. We headed to GYO to pick up some Karachi chicken, the best God damn chicken you’ll ever have in your life. We then made the hour drive out to Little Crystal Creek to go creek swimming. I did a lot of this when I was in Cairns and it never ever gets old. This is probably one of my favourite things to do ever. I never get bored and could just stay there for the rest of my life. If I lived here I would just head down to the creek at the weekends with my friends and go rock jumping, rock sliding and swimming in the refreshing creek.

We did a lot of jumping and damn it was scary, probably one of the biggest rocks I’ve jumped off but there were like four other people there doing it and one thing about me is if I see others having fun I can’t miss out on it. I needed to be doing what they were doing and I needed to be doing it just as well if not better. Unfortunately we couldn’t spend a whole host of time here because we needed to get back on the road to get me back in time to catch my flight.

When I arrived back home I quickly showered and changed round before heading the the airport. We arrived at the airport forty minutes before my flight was meant to depart. Pretty nerve racking when you’re in the queue to check your bags and the flight is already boarding but oh well, I caught the flight and had maximum amount of time in the creek earlier so cutting it fine pays off.

Once on the plane I caught up on writing and just chilled for the three hours. A crazy German man sat next to me trying to tell me all about his life. It was quite an interesting life with many stories but he wouldn’t listen to anything I said in return and it started to grate on me. I’ve found that a lot of peope love talking about themselves and don’t spend enough time listening, particularly men. It becomes quite frustrating.

When the plane arrived we disembarked onto the runaway and the first thing I notice about Melbourne is ‘damn it’s cold’. It’s meant to be summer here but 12 degrees ain’t summer to me. As the flight was domestic the whole journey was pretty easy and it took me no time to be outside and boarding the skybus into the city. Once in the city I took a taxi to my hostel and checked in. The hostel was really nice and pretty quirky but everyone in my room was asleep and it was hard to see which beds were taken so I stumbled around and found a bed which seemed empty and climbed in. I spent a good few hours awake just in case there was an owner of the bed who may come back at anytime and wake me up but I soon fell asleep.