Melbourne

So here I am in the coffee guzzling, fashionable culture-vulture capital of Oz... Melbourne. It is very akin to London in my opinion, both in look and cultural feel. Walking through the city streets you can sense this similar culture its in the bars, shops, what people wear, who they are. Its like a clash of many different sorts of people from all different backgrounds coming together from the various suburbs (like London which range from plush and green "Ramsey Street" style to the downright skanky derelict ghetto's). The City types in their suits rub shoulders with the weird and wonderful bohemian types, tourists and the average man on the street. I had the fortune of finding a really nice hostel located just south of the river which had recently opened in December. It is ultra modern and ultra clean, more like a hotel, so 3 days soon turned into 2 weeks. Early last week I visited your typical various tourist spots such as the Melbourne Aquarium (where they had sharks but no real big ones, then at the end I went on the simulator which I thought would be a pleasant journey through the sea but was some spiraling white knuckle ride which made me feel so sick that I thought I was gonna spew for about an hour afterwards. It was the Universal Studios' (California) space mountain and back to the future ride memories bought back to haunt me.) I also visited the Crown Casino (once the only but now just the largest casino in the southern hemisphere). The best time to go is at night to watch lots of Japanese businessmen and other random people loose their money, plus it is one of the only places (and the nearest to the hostel) to get a beer 24 hours a day. I expect the casino's in Vegas are like this but on serious steroids. I have been to Cooks Cottage (in Fitzroy gardens) which is the cottage that Captain Cooks parents built in Yorkshire originally and lived in. Cook himself would stay there between his voyages discovering many countries obviously including Australia. Anyway, it was bought by a businessman from here and moved over brick by brick. It is strange to see such an English looking cottage in the middle of an Australian city. To me there are hundreds that look like it back home but it is funny to see people from other countries reactions when they see it as they have nothing remotely like it anywhere else. I then went to the Melbourne museum, you wouldn't wanna meet this roo with the bonnet of your car, thats for sure. The highlight was probably the set of the Scully's kitchen from Neighbours (thats how good the museum was to be quite honest). It is a nice city with parks backing onto the skyscrapers and plenty of parks closeby - definitely livable.

The highlight of the tourist spots was the Rialto tower observation deck which is the tallest office building in the southern hemisphere and the tallest buiding in the city. The actual deck is at 253 meters making it something like the 13th tallest observation deck in the world. It offers awesome views out over the city and surrounding area. Here you can see the city including Flinders St Station and Melbourne Cricket ground in the distance . Here out towards the bay, South Melbourne and St. Kilda . And out towards the Docklands area and in the distance the Great Ocean Road .

St Kilda is like Melbourne's alternative suburb by the beach. The beach here is nothing on the ones over in W.A. but that is probably to be expected as it is contained within a large bay. The main landmark to be seen is Luna Park . Money is beginning to look visually depleted on a bank statement at this point so I thought I'd attempt finding some work. I just happened to be in a pleasant enough internet cafe in St. Kilda one day that had a load of nice girls working there and as I sat there tapping away I noticed a sign saying staff wanted. It seemed like a good place to work, a cafe/bar for meeting people, plenty of internet time and most importantly loads of fit girls. So I enquired at the bar and she went to get the owner. When he came out front he was this strange little greek looking dude. He took one look at me the whole time we spoke, asking stuff like do I have a working visa? Tax file number etc. I could tell this was a no goer, plus I wouldn't have wanted to work for him anyway. He blatantly only took fit girls. So when asked what experience I had I said "None at all, but the girls that work here are hot"... My ass was outta there sooner than you could say "fit american bird..."
All the other work I looked for during this time was requiring people who were going to be around for at least 3 months... not one week like me.

I went out with Martin and James (two scottish guys I'd met) and Robin and her mate (two Dutch birds) in St Kilda last Friday night, went to the Espy for a couple of live bands and then to a few bars in St Kilda. The Dutch birds, although very fit, were total cheapskates who didn't wanna pay for anything but would happily except rounds when bought for them so we had no option but to eventually dump them between bars.

One day after arriving from Perth I was already going crazy without my daily strum. So I went off following a tip from a friend of a shop just down the road from where I was staying and found myself a nice new guitar, just a cheapy but it is a copy of a Taylor 316CE and sounds surprisingly good! I got it with padded gig bag, new strings, etc for just $260. After a couple of hours breaking it in I was happy and chilled again. However that lasted for about 2 days as I started hunting for a car... to cut a very long story short (and because I don't want to go over it again) I saw a whole bunch of rubbish over 3 days of looking, blown head gaskets here, cracked radiators there, busted engine sealing everywhere. I met every single variety of used car dealer in the book, most span me a line like "well the reason the temperature gauge is sky high, bubbles are coming up through the radiator cap and coolant is leaking out of the bottom is because you haven't turned the warm air fan on in the car to circulate the air flow". The one positive of these wasted days is that I have become very aware and in the know of what to look for and what to spot when checking a second hand car which I knew nothing about before leaving. See I am learning something. I then realised I am actually constrained by time as I need to be in Byron Bay in 3 weeks time for the music festival (the Bluesfest, which is like the Australian Glastonbury) which I have a ticket for and is about 2,000 km's away. So, I am now going to fly to Sydney and then buy the car there (plus selling it in the same state as I bought it in will make life easier).

I've met a couple from the UK, Matt and Danielle who are really cool. We've been in the same room for the past week. This week we spent a drunken night out at the Crown Casino. They also had this machine called the "Alcolizer" which tests whether you are to inebriated to drive home. Giving it a blow, I was instructed specifically not drive any "large" vehicle. Danielle had a reading of 1% which is high, and this was most probably the reason she wore a coin cup on her head for the rest of the evening and tried to jump in the fountain on the way home.

For all you fans out there (that means you Jules, Andy and Sam!!) I went on the official Neighbours tour yesterday. We visited Erinsborough High School (which is a foreign language school for kids new to Australia from places like Africa, none of them know what the hell is going on when a bunch of tourists turn up to their school), we then drove by the studio (hoping to see Skye - I saw absolutely no one, just the tip of Lassiters over the fence) and then onto the one and only Ramsay Street! Its actually alot smaller than you'd think and is located in a suburb east of Melbourne and is a real street (real name: Pin Oak Court, which even someone nicked the sign of) and people really live in the houses. They are all there Paul Robinson's house, Harolds house, the Kennedy's, and the Hoyland's, etc. The reason they chose this street is really because there is a massive car park around the back to park all the trucks in. Every night the street has to be patrolled by security guards to stop people doing things like burnout's on the street to leave their mark. During the commonwealth games they are closing the street off 24 hours a day!

Anyway, now is definitely time to get out of this city - it is about to pop at the seams for the commonwealth games, its everywhere. Accommodation prices up by as much as double during (and I am not dropping coin like that!) and there is no rowing on (which no one can answer me the question as to why) for us Brits to just rock up and rinse. My plans for this trip were not to be stuck in a city and the fact that I haven't seen a decent beach or wave for the last fortnight is stressing me out - gotta get in the water! So I fly to Sydney on Monday evening (13th March) to then buy a car and get my arse up the coast. But before that I am going to Torquay (the surf town of Victoria - home to Rip Curl and Quiksilver were they were originally conceived. Also home to the world famous Bells Beach!) then on Sunday its a tour of the Great Ocean Road including sunset at the 12 Apostles! Awesome! I will leave you with this little tip (at no extra charge). If you are ever looking for somewhere to eat in Melbourne try here ! They have an extensive menu ... and when you do... let me know what it was like :-)