I can't believe it, I started writing this Melbourne blog in my 7th week, then it was the 17th week and before I knew it I was hanging up my Aussie hat, leaving the country after a year of amazingness and I never did get around to finishing it.
Well here it is in its full glory AND if things couldn't get any better, i've had a little play on the new template designer and freshened up the design and everything! Wow.
Soooooo...17 weeks on and yes, Michelle and I were still in Melbourne, working like busy bees and storing away the honey money for the next chapter of the adventure which felt long overdue. Saving I find relatively easy, saving on Australia's minimum wage of $15 an hour was not so easy... especially when we found ourselves living in the 'suburb to be seen in' along with Danni Minogue, her new beau and baby.
When Tina and I first arrived in Melbourne (for the 2nd time) on April 15th our first port of call was getting a taxi to Dylan and Lynn's house in South Yarra. Dylan and Lynn are mates of Ants (my bro) who left London and made the move to Australia themselves in 2008. They put us up in their new place for 4 days when we made a flying visit in February and offered to house the homeless again if we needed it.
Not one to take an offer lightly it was only a matter of time before I was banging off a facebook message letting them know our flight details and asking for the spare key to be left under the back door! We just needed a place while we found our feet and sorted out new jobs and accommodation so we're very thankful to them for that and probably saved about $300 in hostel fees.
One key piece of advice i'd give to potential travelling buddies is make sure you have the same priorities because it just turns out (but we both knew this anyway) that Tina and I are equally 'ocd' obsessive and borderline freaks about writing lists, being productive and getting EVERYTHING sorted as fast as humanly possible. I'm not exaggerating when I say that by the end of day 1 we had set up a sort of temporary mobile office in D+L's sitting room. We had two laptops on the go, wireless internet being used to the maximum capacity, excel spreadsheets of house viewing times, job applications and phone numbers being created. In the corner of the room Tina sat with the Skype headset on calling endless agents and account managers looking like she was on a call centre marathon challenge.
It was fair to say that by the end of the day we felt we'd had a good stab at getting going on this new Melbourne phase....
By the end of the first week both Michelle and I had jobs, Tina had utilised her account managing experience to land an admin role in an office full of 40 somethings in the Southbank area and I started working at a restaurant in a boutiquey art hotel 10 minutes away called the The Cullen.
Through the powers of fate we also stumbled across the ultimate apartment, perfect in every way and complete with a pool and gym in the rooftop to help get rid of 4 months of backpacking stodge which i'm pleased to say worked a treat. The Wierd story behind the apartment is that it turned out we were moving into Lukes bedroom, Luke being the random Brit we met 4 months previously in New Zealand while doing the glacier hike! It was completely crazy that his boyfriend showed us around the place and we didn't even know it was his, some things are just meant to be.
Over the weeks we've been really strict on not going out too much, especially at the beginning to make sure we were on track with our targets but there have been certain things to tick off the list and add to our agenda which have made our time not only in the city, but in Victoria a fun and memorable one.
Over the weeks we got to know Gerald, our local Avis car hire rep, we even worked the Tina and Doxie magic by blagging the corporate rate for our trips! Dan (Tinas friend) came to visit from Sydney and we drove down the peninsular to the seaside town of Sorrento. This is a place that throbs with tourists in the summer months but had that slightly wind blown desolate feel to it when we went down. It was great driving through the wine regions and having the freedom with the car to go in search of random deserted light houses and look out points though.
A couple of weeks after that Tina and I went in search of a mini adventure yet again and stopped off at the infamous Ramsey Street otherwise known as Pin Oak close, it was soooo weird to be standing outside the houses I used to watch on tv after school in the 90's, especially when it's in Australia...on the other side of the world! After a pit stop there we drove on into The Dandendong Ranges, a scenic drive up into the mountains which look over the Victorian plains. It was a sunny day and worth the climb up to the top to look out at the view of our temporary home.
That day we also managed to fit in a lunch visit to an award winning pie shop as well as some tasty scones and cream in one of the villages on the way down which was completely done up in christmas decor to celebrate the 'Christmas in July' thing the Aussie's do during their winter.
One memorable moment from the day was when in typical Tina and Doxie style we actually managed to lose our hire
car. We were trying to be good and thought seeing as we'd driven up there we should stretch the legs and go for a walk. Unfortunately the sky had clouded over and spots of rain started appearing on the windscreen. We had our umbrellas with us so not to be discouraged I slipped off the uggs and put on the trainers in preparation for an hour of fresh air. We left the car at the tip of a small and VERY muddy walking trail and followed some battered old signs further and further into the forest into we got to the rather disappointing waterfall we'd been looking for, it was more of a muddy trickle.
Anyway, on the return leg the sky was losing light fast and we couldn't quite remember the exact way we'd come from so had to make a bit of an educated guess, which we must have gone wrong because when we reached the car park our car wasn't there! We had an initial 'freak out' and then agreed we must have arrived at a different car park and had to somehow find the first one.
I had horrible visions of having to sleep up in the mountains but after a couple of attempts a car stopped for the waving lunatics on the side of the road and pointed us in the right direction.
In our last month we upped the socialising another level and went out another two times, this time going to as many places as possible in the process. We managed 5 clubs in one night and it didn't cost us anything either because of my new Melbourne friend connections which we utilised to the max (one being a massive bouncer called Tiny who I made skinny lattes for!!)
Our trip to Oz also wouldn't have been complete without a trip to an AFL footie game which we enjoyed loads. We watched Calton vs Collingwood (known for their bogan/chav supporters) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and to my horror/delight we had the worst of the bunch sitting behind us, a real gross family with painted Collingwood flags on their faces constantly yelling pointless abuse at the Calton team.
It was particularly pointless abuse seeing as we were in the highest tier of seating and miles from earshot of the players.
Before we knew it we were into August and the weeks running away from us, a special mention has to go out to the restaurant Babble for giving us the best fillet steak of our lives during one of our treat meals out in Chapel Street. Babble itself is really cute, done up like the inside of a ski chalet with a log fire, stone walls and antler and candle chandeliers. For the hour and a half we were in there I forgot I was in Melbourne and almost expected to walk out onto the snowy streets of Switzerland.
That was our second to last weekend and now that I was working more evenings we'd managed to plan another day trip away at the weekend to Phillip Island, a little pocket of land south of Melbourne connected to the mainland by a bridge but more known for it's wildlife and environmental attractions.
Gerald at Avis had obviously thought he was doing us a favour by upgrading us two car sizes but it's fair to say Tina and I were both shocked and unhappy about being presented with a family sized 'dad type' saloon car for our 3rd and final trip.
This thing was a beast and neither of us wanted to be the first to drive it out of Melbourne! We got there fine though and enjoyed fish and chips on the promenade in Cowes and then cruising around the circumference of the Island in the sunshine.
We finished up the day by watching the very talented local surfers ride huge barrels as the sun set and then I somehow got lost on the drive home. Oh well, all fun and games.
The following weekend I gathered everyone i'd met in Melbourne together for a 'leaving party' night out and we went to an infamous St Kilda venue to watch some local Dj's called Dirty South play. It was good to finish my time in Melbs with a bang and seeing the group out together really reminded me how far we'd come in just 4 months of setting up a brand new existence in a brand new city.
Our last week was crazily hectic and there didn't seem to be enough time to do anything at all. Both of us were working right up until the day before we flew out of the country and any free time was filled with boring tasks like renewing insurance, tax rebate appointments, filling out forms and post office trips. Our last night in the apartment was a randomly great one though with two goodbye visits, one from Karl (good friend from work) and the other from Dylan and Lynn.
Alot of champagne and wine was consumed and the night turned into a bit of a blurry reminiscence of our time in Australia and included some nostalgic staring out across the night sky to the beautiful city scape from the balcony.
When the alarm woke us up at 6am with the traces of a headache to remind us of the night before there just wasn't time to deal with it. What followed was a frantic 3 hours of packing and cleaning before leaving for the airport. We were so rushed that there wasn't even time to eat the remaining 6 milos that sat on the fridge shelf waiting to be devoured...a real sign that things were manic. So before we knew it our keys were on the side waiting for their next owner and the front door closed for the last time.
......And then that was that, Melbourne was over.
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