Life In Australia

So after Tasmania, we returned to Melbourne for two weeks. We thought two weeks would be a good amount of time to sell the car before returning home. We advertised it on Gumtree (on the internet) the same way we bought it. We got a few texts which turned out to be scams but luckily we knew about them beforehand. The first hopeful call was an English couple, similar age to us who wanted a car to travel round Australia. We met them in the city at around 9pm so it was dark and to our advantage. They seemed impressed with the car and all the gear so agreed to buy it without even test driving it. However, they had to wait a couple of days for some insurance money to be cleared before they could give us the cash. So we had a couple of days sat with our fingers crossed. On the Monday we got a call to say they wanted to take it to a garage for a check over before they’d buy. We told them they had to pay for it, as we hadn’t planned on getting it serviced. After 15 minutes in the garage, the mechanic came back with a list of about 15 things wrong with it. Four of them were very urgent, totalling $800, the rest were still problems but the car was still drivable. All in all it came to over $3000. We only paid $2800 for it so there was no way we were paying to get things fixed. We knew there would be things wrong with it but no to that extent. Obviously they didn’t buy the car and we lowered the selling price. A couple of days later we got a call from a guy in his 50’s who needed a car the next day. We met him again in the dark, his choice. He didn’t even look properly at the car, just said if it drives he’d take it. So he dropped us off at the campsite, gave us $1100 cash and drove off. Apparently he would get it serviced two weeks later but by then we were out the country. We were very glad to have sold it, many people don’t give themselves time to sell their cars and end up selling them for $5 at the airport just to get rid of them. It also meant it’s only cost us £500 each for the car, you couldn’t hire a campervan for a month for that.

As we’d been in Melbourne for 3 months we’d pretty much done all the sightseeing that we wanted to do. We spent a lot of time on the campsite reading, watching movies and relaxing. We had Malaysia to save for so didn’t want to spend too much more money. However, we couldn’t not leave the site in the two weeks that we had left.

We had made friends with two girls from near Birmingham whilst at the site so went for a meal one night in the city. There was a street that we had noticed a few weeks before so thought we’d find somewhere there. It was mainly Italian restaurants, all with people outside trying to get you to go to their restaurant. It felt a lot like Asia with people hassling you for business. The first lady offered us a free drink each, plus a free entree and two courses for $28. We started to think that was a good offer until every other restaurant offered us the same thing. It was great food and we all enjoyed it. Finished the evening in a bar and had a drink in front of “Chloe”, a famous full size nude painting. It’s on the list of things to do to class yourself as a true Melbournian.

On one of the days we thought we’d have a trip to the ‘Old Melbourne Gaol’. The first part was a 30 minute session where you got arrested and treated like a criminal. All the men and ladies were separated, we had to answer ‘yes sergeant’, she then looked in our mouths and our pockets. Finally she said we had to have a strip search. Obviously it was role play and this didn’t actually have to happen, although Dan being Dan pretended to take off his shirt in front of everyone, got a few laughs and then shouted at by the sergeant. We then got locked in cells in the dark for a few minutes to see what it would have been like. Had a quick look around the padded cells and exercise areas and then went into the main prison where we learn about what life was like. There was also a section on ‘Ned Kelly’ so we learnt all about his story.

Whilst watching Australia’s Got Talent, I noticed an advert for free XFactor Audience tickets. I thought I’d apply but knowing how popular it is in the UK I didn’t rate my chances of getting any. However, the next morning I got an email to say I’d got tickets for two out of the six sessions. I was quite pleased, free entertainment to keep us occupied for two days. It was me and Dan who went the first day. We couldn’t decide what time to turn up in the morning as the tickets were still first come first served. The doors opened at 11am so thought 8am would be a good time to arrive. Dan was not impressed with a 6am start to get there for 8am but I managed to get him motivated. We arrived to find no one around, we even thought we’d got the wrong day or place, knowing how busy it can get for the UK version. We had a brew across the road and by about 9am a few people started to show up. By 9.30am we got moved to another area to queue. The contestants were all registering here and a film crew were setting up to take some shots of the crowd. By about 11am the queuing area was full, probably a couple of thousand people. As we’d got there first we were at the front of the queue hence at the front of all the footage. We had about an hour of filming where we had to scream and make wooing noises. We then had to dance for 5 minutes while the camera filmed us all. We were a bit sick of having to scream and have excited faces after all that. By about 1pm we finally made it into the arena where we had more filming to do. Clapping, happy faces, booing and standing ovations. The judges then came out on stage. There was Mel B from the Spice Girls, Ronan Keating, Guy Sebastian who is an Australian singer and Natalie Bassingthwaighte who was in Neighbours. There were about 25 acts through the afternoon, three of them were really good, a lot of average people but unfortunately no one that really deserved a good boo!! And that’s really what we wanted to see. The second day did however, have a lot of rubbish people. This time I went with a friend who I’d met from work. The day was very similar but as it was a Saturday it was much busier and there were more acts performing. A lot of strange people who couldn’t sing at all, just what you expect to see on XFactor.

The final day we flew out of Melbourne at midnight so we had the whole day to take down the two tents and pack up. It’s a good job we had all day as it seemed to take forever trying to strategically pack all our possessions back into a rucksack. It’s surprising how much stuff you accumulate over nine months. We had to throw a lot of things away to make room for everything otherwise we’d never have got it all home. However, both out bags turned out to be just underweight as we checked in for our final part of the trip to Malaysia.

The reason we decided to choose this paid site was that it had hot showers, the first chance to have one since leaving Melbourne 4 days ago. Fi got up early and headed off to have a shower, she was back quickly saying that the showers worked on a token that you got from the reception, which was closed that day. So, with no showers we decided to quickly leave the campsite without paying, naughty yes, but then again the only reason we wanted a paid site was to shower, so we drove away quickly.

We went back to Port Arthur for a look around the historic site in daylight. Our admission ticket included a guided tour, access to all the buildings and also a short boat cruise. The woman that did the tour was very entertaining and told some great stories. After the tour we had a look around the solitary cells and the lunatic asylum right next door, built there we were told because most people went mad when sent to solitary as they spent all day in silent with no human contact for what could be months on end. Afterwards we went on the boat cruise, which sailed around two small islands, one with became the cemetery and the other, larger one was used for the juvenile criminals.

After a quick trip to the Tasman Arch (a cliff edge that has had the sea wear a huge hole creating an arch) and another blowhole (which was terrible as water barely trickled out of the top of it), we headed in the direction of Hobart. We have been using two camping books to find our free campsites while travelling around, however neither showed a free one anywhere near the Hobart area, so we got online and searched for a cheap hostel or campsite to stay at. We eventually decided to stick with what we know and booked into the Big4 Campsite just on the outskirts of Hobart next to the airport. We have been staying on a Big4 the whole time we have been in Melbourne so know they had what we needed like a camp kitchen and hot showers. This campsite was quite new and we got a powered campsite, so after we had showers and tea, we spent the rest of the night watching a tv series called Dexter on the laptop in the back of the car.

Day 6 (Friday), and we hit Tasmania’s capital city, Hobart. To be honest, not a lot goes on in Hobart. It’s a nice enough city, but doesn’t have anything really to do. We had a look around at a few of the landmarks in and around the CBD, had my favourite coffee from Gloria Jeans and took a walk around the harbour jetties (it was here we found out that ‘flake’ is in fact shark). We went and took a visit to the Female Factory, which is where all the female prisoners ended up. There are only the perimeter walls left, but it once was overcrowded with female inmates that lived in cramped conditions and were forced to work in a factory making a variety of goods. We also took a quick trip to a brewery but didn’t do the tour, still couldn’t help myself to buy a couple of bottles for a drink later that night.

After that we went to the best part of Hobart, Mount Wellington. The city is positioned right at the bottom of this mountain, and as tourism boomed, a road was built up the side of it allowing visitors to reach the summit with ease. Obviously we drove up, why not. We were glad we did, because at the top there was snow at the side of the roads and the winds were extremely strong, plus it could take over 2 hours walking to reach the top. Apart from the car, the only other shelter was a building that looked out over Hobart. We quickly walked over to it, but due to clouds couldn’t really see that far, let alone the valley floor. So we read all the notice boards telling us about the mountain and the early explorers that made it to the top (Charles Darwin was an early visitor to the summit). Then, and rather quickly, the clouds parted and we got some great views over the small city and the coast line. We went outside into the bitter wind to get a better view. We didn’t last long before we couldn’t feel most of our body so headed back to the car. Fi jumped in but I decided to head up to the highest point, which was a rock platform called the Pinnacle. Was kind of a good idea Fi didn’t come, because I struggled to stand on top without the wind blowing me over, Fiona would surely have got blown away!

The next day we found ourselves in the Hartz National Park, mainly because we had driven and camped there the night before. Our plan was to take a drive up to the highest point, Hartz Peak, and do a 2 hour walk to some scenic waterfalls. However, as we made the ascent, we hit snow, quite alot of it. And the higher we went, the deeper it got and more snow fell from the sky. We pressed on until I found it difficult to stop the rear of the car continually wanting to overtake the front, while going uphill! We decided to admit defeat, turned round and headed cautiously to the bottom. Finding ourselves with the whole day, we decided to continue on our planned route back through Hobart and towards the North-West of Tasmania. The drive was to be over 3 hours of forest and hilly driving, as roads snaked up and down the valleys. We did a quick stop on the northern outskirts of Hobart to visit the famous Cadbury’s chocolate factory to do a tour and get ourselves stuffed on free chocolate, but the visitor centre is closed on weekends and it was Saturday, so we continued with the drive.

About halfway to our campsite destination, we stopped again to visit Lake St Clair. Again we encountered snow, but not as bad as earlier in the day and we made it to the visitor centre. It was a huge building that features a few fire places for us to get warm again. We planned to do a walk around the lake, but with no waterproof trousers, more rain and snow falling and the walking track being very slippy, we just visited the jetty before going back inside for a hot drink.

That night, we slept in the back of the car at a deserted campsite right next to a huge lake, had a quick lunch that consisted of peas, pasta, pesto and parmesan. If we had any other food item that began with ‘P’, I’m sure that it would have been added in as well.

Sunday, and our penultimate day in Tasmania. First stop was for breakfast at an old mining town called Queenstown, a sign told us it was the most westerly large town in Tasmania. If that isn’t a claim to fame then I don’t know what is. After we had had our fill of bacon, cheese and egg wraps (with BBQ sauce) and cups of tea and coffee, we headed to Cradle Mountain Nation Park. We knew it was going to be a pretty location because so many postcards featured pictures of Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake below it. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side, like it hadn’t been since we had great weather for the first 3 days of our tour. It was cloudy and raining, after some encouragement, Fi and I set off on the 1.5-2 hour walk around the lake. About half way through the rain did turn to a light drizzle, and the wind died down a little, but the low clouds stayed, meaning that for our whole visit we didn’t actually get to see the famed Cradle Mountain. Lucky, I guess, we had seen the postcards.

Onto our last night and last campsite, we stayed at a nice little place that had all kinds of birds and plant life. We did a short walk along the river before having tea. As it was in the middle of nowhere, and because it went dark around 5pm, we watched more episodes of Dexter on the laptop before bed.

Day 9, our last day on the island, and as we drove towards the north coast to view the last sights on our list, the clouds disappear and the sun came out. It’s still not the warmest we have experienced, but it was nice to not be exploring in the rain. First visit of the day was to a small town called Stanley that had an interesting feature called ‘The Nut.’ It’s an ancient volcanic plug, imagine a steep sided block of land, around 150 meters tall with a flat top, jutting out from the flat coast line. There is a chair lift that can take you to the top, but as we were saving money, we walked up the incredibly steep path. Once at the top, there’s a walk that takes you all the way around the Nut that takes about 45 minutes. It had some great views looking down at the sandy coast line the met the very blue sea. We even saw some Pademelons that look like Wallabies, but are smaller.

Our last national park was Rocky Cape, quite a small one compared to the other NPs we had visited, but was still a nice visit. It’s a section of coast line that features multi-coloured rocky beaches, aboriginal caves, various cliff top lookouts and even a small lighthouse. After a couple of short walks, we headed to Table Cape (a tall and long cliff, with yet another light house) before continuing along the coast back to our Tasmanian starting point, Devenport. The drive was very scenic, we went through a small town called Penguin which featured many penguin statues.

When we got to Devenport we still had a few hours to kill before we could start boarding the Spirit Of Tasmania ferry, so we explored the town centre and had a rather unhealthy supper at McDonalds. Afterwards, we boarded the ferry, we were told to drive right down to the bottom of the ship where the cars were carefully packed in so that when we made it to Melbourne, we were one of the last cars off the ferry. The cruise back wasn’t as smooth as the first ferry, with the boat rocked by the waves and wind. I did briefly go out on deck and watched the waves in the moonlight, but it was freezing so didn’t spend long outside. Again we slept in the Ocean Recliners, I say slept, we both kept waking up after the odd big wave.

Overall, I loved Tasmania, it’s a very scenic place, with some worthwhile tourist spots and would happily recommend people to visit the island that is just over twice the size of Wales, although I would maybe suggest going during the summer months instead.

One last road trip before we leave Australia, we decided that we had to visit Tasmania. We had been looking at the ferry prices for quite a while, but the summer prices were simply too high to really justify going. However, as autumn is turning into winter, the prices dropped, so, grabbing a bargain, we booked our crossings.

Our ferry to Devenport left Melbourne at 7:30pm on Saturday 7th May. The ferry was quite nice, food was a little over priced but we ate before boarding. Beers were the same price as a normal bar so that was good. There were two films showing in the cinema, the first was The A-Team, which we both watched. After the film Fi called it a day and went to bed. I say bed, I mean chair. Rather than pay for a private room, we booked a pair of Ocean Recliners. Imagine a large room filled with business/first class style aircraft chairs. I stayed up and watched another film before I went to my chair. They were quite comfortable and the crossing was fairly smooth.

We arrived in Devenport at 6:30am, after a slow exit through customs (Fi got very excited when she saw that the sniffer dog was a Lab-cross-Beagle) we hit the roads of Tasmania. Straight away it felt all very familiar. The roads and scenery are not that different from back home, driving along felt like I was driving through the Yorkshire Dales or the Lake District, minus the pot holes. Ohh, and a lot of the roads we went on were gravel roads.

Our first stop was for breakfast at a nice little bakery, as it was a Sunday and quite early it was nice to see a place open serving hot foods in front of a warm fire place. The weather was sunny, with not many clouds in the sky, but as it was near enough winter there was quite a chill in the air. Next we arrived at Mole Creek National Park to have a look at the Marakoopa Caves, the caves were good, nowhere near as good as the Jenolan Caves, but still worth a visit. The main selling point for the caves however, was towards the end of the tour when the guide turned off all of the lights and told us to look up. We were greeted with a ceiling full of glow worms, shining green looking like a night full of stars.

We left the caves and walked back to the car park, along the way we saw a wallaby hopping around and some creature that neither of us got a great look at, but resembled a Tasmanian Devil. In the car again and we drive up to Launceston to tick off a couple of our to-visit list items. The first was the Cataract Gorge, which was a pretty landscaped basin that had been a huge tourist attraction in the 1940/50s. It had band stands, lawns, a swimming pool, suspension bridge and a chair lift up to a lookout on top of the gorge. We however walked to the top, it was worth it though as the view was great.

Next stop was my choice, a car museum. It was Fiona’s fault for mentioning it. Was quite a small museum, but still had some nice, rare cars including a Sierra Cosworth RS500 touring car and a Jaguar E-Type. The museum was a short walk away from the town centre, so, as we need a cash machine, we walked to the shops. Lucky we did as we walked through a park with an interesting feature. I happened to see an enclosure out of the corner of my eye, when I looked I saw that the park had monkeys. Fi’s face lit up as we went to have a look. It was quite a large enclosure that had been there, operating for free, since the park had been opened in 1820. We counted over 20 macaques running around. We also walked back through the park when heading back to the car for a second look.

After leaving the town, we headed to Ben Lomond National Park for our first night’s sleep, ready to view the rest of the park in the morning. One the way we saw a lot of dead animals that had been can only be called road kill, we even had a close call when a kangaroo decided to jump out of a bush right into the path of our car, luckily I braked and it moved in time before re-arranging the front of the Holden. We made it to the campsite in one piece. It was bloody cold! We made the mistake of choosing a campsite quite high up in the hills and we really suffered with the temperature drop. It took ages to get the water boiling and even longer to cook some pasta. I made a fire, but with a lack of firewood that was dry it didn’t last for long. Also it went dark very early, with it pretty much pitch black under the trees canopy at 5:00ish. We went to bed very early in the back of the car and spent most of the night shivering. In the morning it was still cold, if not colder. We had a cup of warm tea and jam on bread as there was no way we could have made toast. Once all was packed away we set off to Jacobs Ladder.

I had been looking forward to Jacobs ladder since seeing photos about 3 weeks before we left, it was a gravel road that wound its way up the mountain hairpin turn after hairpin turn. I couldn’t wait to drive up it but Fi was worrying about how safe it was. After seeing a camper van come down the hill, I managed to convince Fi that we were not going to fall off the steep edges to our deaths, so up we went. I had to drive slowly and carefully, because of Fi and also because of the poor old car, but when we got to the top it was worth it. The views were amazing with the other mountains in the backgrounds and the rocks and road in the foreground. There was even small patches of snow at the top, however we will see more of that further into our trip.

From the mountains, we travelled to the east coast of Tasmania, famed for having some of the whitest beaches in the world. We had a quick stop at a place called Eddystone Point, which featured a lighthouse and a boat ramp that jutted out between some savage looking rocks. Next came the Bay Of Fires (which was my second favourite place after Jacobs Ladder). The Bay Of Fires was a long stretch of coastline with large sand dunes made of very white sand with spots of very green vegetation such as small bushes and scrubs. It was very picturesque and I took a lot of photos. The sand was so fine that it squeaked as we walked up and down the dunes. It seemed to go on for miles and also featured various pools that for some reason were green in colour, making the place even more special.

Our second night and a different campsite, luckily this time it was in the valley floor next to a large river and not half as cold as the first night. Water still took some time to boil, but at least it did boil. I slept really well compared to the previous night.

Day 3, Tuesday, and after a cup of tea and a jam sandwich (tried to make toast, didn’t work) we went to Binnalong Bay. It was a pretty little bay with white sand again. The sun was out and it wasn’t that cold, so Fi decided to have a paddle in the sea. Now, Fi was really proud of the fact that she went into the sea in Tasmania, but in truth, she got out that quickly I am not really convinced that it counts. “It’s cold” is still echoing around that bay as you read this.

Next stop on the list was Douglas Aspley National Park which featured a water hole in the middle of a forest and a gorge. However there had been flooding recently and we only viewed the water hole as the route to the gorge had been badly damaged with fallen trees and parts washed away. We continued on to the Bicheno Blowhole which was the best blowhole we have seen on our travels. It was a large flat rock covered beach with a blowhole that shot water in a thick column about 3 meters into the air. The last stop of the day, and our camp site for the night, was the Freycinet National Park. It is a peninsular on the east coast that contains many sites that are worth viewing. While it was still light, we went to the Honeymoon Bay (it is used a lot as a backdrop for wedding photos). It was a bay that featured a pebble beach and huge orangey coloured rocks surrounded by a wall of pine trees, not surprised it was used by so many newlyweds for their photos. The campsite was very close to the beach and had lots of wood to use for a fire, unfortunately most of it was wet so we only had a small fire for warmth and light as the sun set.

We woke up the next day to find that it was raining, we had planned on doing a 3 hour walk to the Wineglass Bay beach (which Fiona found was one of the top rated in the world). However due to the weather we only did the 1h 30m walk over a steep hill to the bays lookout point. The view was amazing, and I am sure it would have been worth the extra walking to the bay if the weather had been sunny, but with the wind and the rain blowing right into the beach, we turned back, happy we at least got to see the area. We had planned on spending all day at Wineglass, so had the rest of the day to kill. Luckily our next planned stop had plenty to do, so we drove down to the Tasman National Park and surrounds. We visited a Tasmanian Devil sanctuary that we planned to go to the following day. It had 5 different Devil enclosures as well as the usual Australian wildlife such as wallabies and kangaroos. We saw feeding time for one Devil group which was a good laugh watching the chasing as they ran around fighting for food, they also don’t half make a lot of noise. We also saw an excellent bird show, the talker got most of the audience involved such as Fi having a falcon land on her arm and both of us having the same falcon flying through our legs.

After the sanctuary, we went to a small takeaway/post office/local store for our tea. We had fish and chips. Well, we thought we had fish and chips, we really had shark and chips (although they call shark ‘flake’ in chippys as it sounds better). It was a really thick and chewy, but tasted really nice, as did the gravy I had on my chips. Australians don’t really like gravy on their chips, so was nice to have something familiar. After tea, we had something different booked, a ghost tour at Port Arthur.

Port Arthur is a historic town that started off life as a place where second offenders were sent, mainly from the UK and Ireland, to serve time. It was a simple prison that had the criminals working the timber yards, but grew and grew until it became a big penitentiary that featured a governor’s house, a church, barracks for the military and homes for the people that ran the site. The ghost tour was great, shown round by lanterns the various buildings that feature ghost tales including the solitary cells that lead to many prisoners going mad. We didn’t see anything supernatural, but still enjoyed it all the same. Afterwards we went off to another campsite, it was a paid site, but when we arrived the office was closed so we went to bed, ready to pay in the morning.

We’re still in Melbourne at the moment, working and having fun on weekends. It’s now definitely coming up to Winter, we have days where it’s 26 or so degrees and sunny but also had come cold cloudy days. Well cold for Australia anyway! We’ve actually had quite a lot of rain last week, luckily our tent has stayed waterproof apart from the porch where we had left the tarp that’s on the floor sticking outside of the tent so this collected water and then ran inside. Apart from that, the camp site is still going well. It’s pretty quiet at the moment, our good friends left a couple of weeks ago so now there’s just us and three Brummie girls who are living here for a long period.

Since last writing a blog, we’ve had a few busy weekends. The Moomba festival was on mid March. A weekend of free activities including waterskiing competitions in the Yarra River running through the city, live music, Birdman rally, carnival and fireworks. It was a lovely hot weekend.

We went to a Travel Expo a few weekends ago. It was a large exhibition with lots of stands of places to visit in Australia but also across the world. We went hoping there would be some offers on for ferries to Tasmania but unfortunately there wasn’t. Dan did manage to come away with about 20 free pens, keyrings, newspapers, sweets and lots of pointless freebies. Apparently you can never have too many free pens! We also had our first roast dinner since leaving home. It was a joint effort with friends Matt and Laura. We had roast beef and all the trimmings, apart from the Yorkshire pudding. No where seems to sell Aunt Bessie’s so we bought pancake mix instead and put it in the oven in a baking tray. Unfortunately, it didn’t rise and when we tasted it, it tasted of cake. So we munched through it before having cheesecake.

The following weekend was the Formula One practice. We arrived for the gates opening at 10.30am. There were two 1 and ½ hour practice sessions for the formula one car’s so we watched both of these, walking round the track to see different parts of the track. The cars were so loud, I hadn’t realised quite how loud it would be and was really glad we had earplugs. There were also other races throughout the day including old cars, porches, V8 supercars and a celebrity Lexus challenge. We saw Brian McFadden get out his car but he didn’t want to see any of the public so left straight away. I did however get my picture with Chris Brown, the vet from Bondi Vet on TV.

We have now played our final round of mini golf. Unfortunately, I have to say that Dan won making the scores 3:2. I was very upset by this, I was determined to beat him but the pressure got to me and I lost by 6 points. We played in Melbourne at a glow in the dark course. It was really fun, some of the holes were quite difficult as you couldn’t see where you were hitting the ball.

Having spent 59 nights on the camp site, we were told we had to check out for a night but could check back in the following day. We decided to take advantage of this and go out the city for the weekend to the Yarra Valley, a famous wine region two hours out of Melbourne. On the Saturday, we drove to a large dam and reservoir. We walked over the dam and through a wooded area by the reservoir. We also stopped at a big hedge maze, Frisbee golf and adventure place. That evening we stayed in a state forest again for free, it was nice to be camping in the middle of nowhere again. However, we’ve got used having the camp kitchen and TV room to sit in on an evening so when it went dark at 6.30pm we were stuck in the car for the rest of the night. Luckily we’ve got the laptop for movies and plenty of books.
On the Sunday, we took a drive up Mt Donna Buang. Half way up was a rainforest walk along metal walkways. Took about half an hour but unfortunately we didn’t see any exciting wildlife. We were then going to drive to the summit for views of Melbourne however, the car wasn’t happy with the steep hills and there was a really bad burning smell so we decided not to risk it and headed back down. Instead we did a walk along the Yarra river and then another walk up to some waterfalls. It was nice to be out in the country again doing some walking!

We went to the IMAX not long ago. Originally we went in to see what films they would be showing but then saw a poster advertising a documentary on rehabilitating orphaned orang-utans and elephants. It focused on two ladies who both had sanctuaries and worked to release them back to the wild. I was hoping it would show the place where I worked in Borneo but it was a based at a different sanctuary. It was a really good documentary and it was also in 3D, plus on an IMAX screen so the quality was amazing.

Couple of weekends ago, we went to Phillip Island. We had heard about the place on a documentary that Rolf Harris narrated before we left the UK so I was glad we got to visit. People mainly go to the island to visit the Little Penguins but there were lots of other activities to do. We visited a chocolate factory where we made the most of the free chocolate. We then went to a koala sanctuary and also the race track. We had planned to do a 45 minute tour of the circuit but when we arrived they were cancelled due to actual races. This worked out to Dan’s advantage! We paid $15 and spent a couple of hours watching the different races. There was a dirt track running around the edge of the circuit so we drove around to get a better view. The ticket also allowed us to walk around the pits to see all the cars. In the evening we went to see the ‘penguin parade’. At about 5pm, us and about 1000 other people sat on some tied seating on the edge of the beach and waited until 6.15 when it went dark for the penguins to come out of the sea and cross the beach back to their burrows. They came out the sea in groups of about 10-40 and waddled across the beach right in front of us. After seeing 5 or 6 groups walk across the beach we walked along the boardwalks between all their burrows to get a closer view. The penguins are used to people being there every night but it still didn’t feel right being so close to them. They didn’t seem bothered though.

Last weekend was Easter but we didn’t do a lot. Trying to save money as we know how much fuel we will need to buy in Tasmania. We did go for a few walks and enjoyed the sunshine. We also sold both our bikes so that’s one thing sorted. Just got the car to sell now after Tasmania, providing it doesn’t die before then!!

Finally got round to writing the Melbourne update. We arrived here on the 14th February so it’s been nearly a month now. We booked onto a paid camp site in a suburb called Coburg just out of the city. We didn’t want to book into a hostel as they are more expensive and there’s often no where to park cars. There are only a few sites round Melbourne and this one was the cheapest. It’s got a nice camp kitchen with big fridges, freezers, cooker and microwaves. The toilets and showers are good and there’s also a good size TV room. There’s even a pool and a jacuzzi which was nice last weekend when it was hot. It does however take about 40 minutes to get to the city by tram.

We’ve both got jobs sorted now but it took us roughly two weeks. Trying to find jobs was stressful again, handing out loads of CV’s as before. There had been a lot more jobs going here than we’ve seen before so we both gave out a lot of CV’s to shops, cafes and bars. Neither of us was hearing back from anyone at first, it’s the usual situation of no one wanting to take on travellers. So Dan decided he’d look into labouring again. He wasn’t keen on doing it here as the weather was supposed to be really hot around February and March. Anyway he put an advert on Gumtree and the next day a guy emailed him with the number for his building company. We went to meet him and he said he could give Dan full time work. Dan had already been the same morning to sign up to a labouring agency. He started working the next day at a house just outside the city and has been there since. It’s some renovation work so he’s helping knock down walls and ceilings, moving bricks about and being a general hand. He seems to be really enjoying it, keeps him busy, fit and he’s learning lots of new things. I then got a call to say I had an interview at a jewellery store in a shopping mall where we’d been handing out CV’s a few days before. It was the first interview I’d had in Melbourne but was thinking she’d probably be interviewing lots of Aussie’s too so wasn’t too hopeful. However the interview went well and I got a call a few days later on my birthday to say I got the job. I had four, three hour training sessions and I’m now working there on my own Monday to Friday. It’s in a huge mall about 30 minutes away by car but I have to go by public transport so it usually takes me an hour and a half to get there by tram and bus. So we’re both up at 6.15am which is fun! It’s like being back at Pets at Home with the early starts apart from now I have to wear nice clothes, make up and do my hair rather than throwing on combats and a fleece. The days so far have been very quiet, I took $25 on Wednesday. I spend most of the day cleaning the cabinets and jewellery, wishing I had lots of money to buy. It’s nice jewellery, silver and pearls, unfortunately the white gold and diamonds are only at the other store so I don’t get to sell them. I’m getting used to cashing up now, I went home the first night paranoid I’d left the safe open or not locked all the cabinets etc. But it was all fine.

We’ve also done some fun things whilst we’ve been here. Valentine’s was out first day here so we took a walk down South Bank along the river and went for some tea in a nice bar, pizza and calamari, another thing I can add to the list of things I’ve tried here. We also spent a while trying to get some good night photos of the city.

We’ve found a drive- in cinema just down the road from the camp site. We’ve been twice now on Mondays as it half price! We went to see ‘No Strings Attached’ and ‘Hall Pass’. It’s very strange watching it in your car; it feels like you’re in the movies. There’s a big screen and you all park in designated spots and tune your radio in. Good fun.

We’ve been to the Queen Victoria market in the city. It’s the largest outdoor market in the Southern Hemisphere. Lots of souvenirs but also fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, cheese and bread. We discovered the best time to go is a Sunday as they are closed on a Monday and they are selling all the fresh food cheap. We went half an hour before closing and picked up diced steak, sausage and mince for a fraction of the supermarket price. We stocked up and froze lots of it.

Down on the South Bank is the huge casino. We’d been told to go even if it was just to look around. We’d heard stories of people leaving their children locked their cars in the car park while they gambled away upstairs. It’s a huge casino, people walking round with masses of chips. We saw one lady putting down a $600 bet, no hesitation. We decided to do a ‘Learn to Play’ session, a women taught us how to play Blackjack with all the tricks of how to win against the dealer. Dan picked it up quite well but I’m terrible with card games. We each got a free $5 chip which we then played for real and then Dan decided to play $10 for two more shots at winning. Unfortunately he lost both times. The $5 minimum bets were rare, most were $30 minimum or more. You can see how the casino make so much money.

It was then our birthday weekend. On Dan’s birthday we went to Brunswick Street, which is famous for its bars and cafes. We had a pint of cider and then headed to Melbourne Museum. We managed to spend 4 hours looking around. In the evening we went to ‘Hogs Breath Cafe’. I went to one in Brisbane when I was last here so knew it did really good steaks. There was a huge sharing platter that we couldn’t resist. Steaks, ribs, bacon and lamb cutlets with chips and salad. Very tasty! The following day we went to the city to a festival based around some Italians trying to make the longest pizza for a new world record. We saw it reach about 500m but apparently it broke during the afternoon due to the rain. Then my birthday, we had a fry up for breakfast and then headed to Melbourne Zoo where we spent 6 hours wandering around. It’s a good zoo, lots of animals to see and took far too many photos as usual.

Last weekend, we invested in a new tent. The other one was very small and someone gave us a free double airbed as they were finishing their trip and it wouldn’t have fit in our tent. It’s starting to get cold here now at night and sleeping on camping mats wasn’t helping. At least now we are raised off the floor and have a bit more comfort. We also had a walk around the botanical gardens, making the most of the sunshine before it disappears for the Autumn.

This weekend should be fun. It’s the Moomba festival so there’s lots of things happening all over the city including waterskiing competitions in the river, a parade, live music and a light show across the city buildings. Should be a good weekend!