BootsnAll Travel Network



Melbourne

Melbourne is a reall cool city, with a lot going on. But I’m tired of being down under and ready to head north where the weather is a little bit nicer. It was nice here (or “fine” as the weather forecast always seems to say) when I first arrived in Melbourne, but most of the weekend was cloudy, cold, and wet. But the city is really nice, with lots of live music, galleries, good shopping and great foosd. All you would expect from a city of 4 million people.

I arrived in Melbourne last Wednesday at about 8:30 AM, and went directly to my hostel. I had no idea where I was going to stay when arrived, but after reviewing some of the accomodation boards at the airport I narrowed it down to a couple of possible places in St. Kilda, a beachside neighborhood in South Melbourne. While calling a couple of them to inquire about rooms, I was approached by a tout who happened to be working for All Nations Backpackers, one of the places on my list. They were offering a $15 rate on the first night’s stay, and also a free shuttle from the airport, so of course I took them up on it. It turned out to be a real dive (one of the locals told me it used to be a motel and that most of the rooms were rented “by the hour” if you get my drift). But the location was good, and they had free wireless acess, so I spent most of my time walking around the neighborhood and surfing the net to sort out my plane tickets to Borneo.

After staying two nights at the hostel, I met up with a friend of a friend of Kevin and Milyn’s who had emailed me and offered me a couch to crash on for the weekend. Liz (yes, her name is also Liz, the same as my host in New Plymouth) is a journalist who writes for The Age, one of the Melbourne papers, and with Melbourne being so big, I was excited to have a local connection to help me figure out the town. Liz was awesome enough to pick me up from the hostel on Friday afternoon and we headed to her place which was also in St Kilda.

Liz pretty much left me to my own devices, which was perfectly fine, but did invite me to tag along with her and some friends to see a show at the Esplanade Hotel on Friday night. The Espy, as it’s known to the locals, is an old hotel which has a great history of live music. Apart from the main ballroom, there are also two other stages, and I counted as many as ten different bands playing that night. We saw a couple of good bands, and also a couple of not so good ones, and we finally called it a night around 1:00 or so. Saturday morning we went to the Queen Victoria market, a large open air market that covers about 4 city blocks. We both picked up some fresh fruit and produce, and I also found some good cheeses to sample. At the deli counter I saw some Kangaroo Salami and couldn’t pass that up. (I was a little disappointed though because other than maybe being a little bit spicier, it really didn’t taste much different from beef salami.) The whole market was realy cool, and it was great to walk around and see all the different things being sold.

The other thing I had really wanted to do while in Melbourne was see a game of Australian Rules Football, or Footy as it’s commonly called. There were 6 or 7 games to choose from that weekend, and I opted to see a game at MCG Stadium (Melbourne Cricket Grounds), which is where the Commonwealth Games were held a couple of months ago. Footy is quite different from American football because there are no “downs” and the play rarely stops. The only way to advance the ball is to kick it or punch it. There is no passing, and if you run with the ball you must bounce it on the ground every 15 meters. Although the game started out pretty one-sided, it ended up being a very close game at the end and was pretty exciting to watch.

Saturday evening was pretty quiet. Liz cooked up a really good stir-fry, and we hung out and watched her team play footy on the telly. Sunday was wet and rainy, but that afternoon I walked down to the Esplanade for the St. Kilda arts and crafts market that is held every Sunday. Unfortunately, by the time I got there the weather had driven most of the vendors home for the day. So it was on to plan B, Luna Park. Luna Park is an old amusement park, styled after Coney Island, and had an old school roller coaster that I was dying to ride. However, that didn’t happen either, as the ride was down for maintenance. So I finally resigned myself to heading back to the house and enjoying some kangaroo salami and cheese, but not before I got caught in one hell of a rainstorm.

Since I was flying out to Darwin on Tuesday night, I opted to get out of Liz’s hair and book a hostel in the city center for Monday night so that I could explore downtown Melbourne a little more. I found a great hostel just a few blocks off the main transit line that was within walking distance from almost everything. The hostel was called The Greenhouse, and at $27 a night it was the most expensive hostel I’ve stayed in so far. But it was worth every penny, as it was very clean, with a huge kitchen, free breakfasts, and a very friendly staff. The were also very environmentally conscious which was a nice bonus. One of the cool things about Melbourne is all the little shops and cafes which are tucked away off the main streets. Between every main street in the CBD is another one way smaller street. For, example, one of the main streets by the hostel was called Bourke St, and a block away from it was a little one lane street called Little Bourke. It’s these little streets, and all the small cross streets where everything is. My messenger bag had a serious blowout, so I had to go shopping for a new one. On Little Bourke there were about 7 or 8 outdoor stores within a two block stretch. There was even a Columbia Sportswear store, which I thought was really cool since Columbia is based in Oregon. (Also while reading one of the local papers I noticed that an Oregon brewery had won best of show in the 2004 and 2005 Australian International Beer Awards.)

Anyway, the one night at the Greenhouse was pretty cool, and on Tue night I caught the flight to Darwin. I arrived here at about 2:00 AM yesterday, and found accomodations at what many say is the best hostel in town, Melaleuca on Mitchell. The hostel itself is pretty sparsely furnished, but the selling point is the rooftop pool and sundeck. It’s about 32 degrees here (app. 95 Far.) and the pool and sundeck is really quite nice. May 1 is the beginning of the dry season here (Darwin only has two seasons, wet and dry), and tonight is the opening night of the Mindil Beach Market. I’ve been exchanging emails with a local girl I met through Couchsurfing.com, and she offered to show me around tonight and take me to the market. It should be quite fun, and maybe I’ll finally get around to picking up some souvenirs. (It’s really hard to buy souvenirs while traveling, because you either have to pack them around with you for the rest of the trip, or ship them home which can be really expensive.)

I’ll hang in Darwin through Friday night, and then catch a flight to Singapore on Saturday morning. From there I’ll hop a couple of more flights and arrive in Kota Kinabalu (Borneo) on Sunday AM.

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Australian Rules Football at the MCG

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Kangaroo Salami

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One Response to “Melbourne”

  1. Laura Says:

    I was wondering where you went! Sounds like you’re speeding up the trip thru SE Asia..

    The dingo’s got mah baby!

  2. Posted from United States United States
  3. Hotel Kota Kinabalu Says:

    hope you can pay us a visit in the very near future.
    Regards

  4. Posted from Malaysia Malaysia