Australia, Melbourne: Rainy, Cold Summer Days Reminding Us of Home

The next to last stop on our year-long trip around three continents was Melbourne, which was known for being the most European city in Australia with its many cafes and small, narrow streets in the city centre. For us, it was a destination we had been looking forward to because a number of good friends of ours had moved there for work over the past several years. Some introductions are in order for Lori and Ian, Liz, and Rebekah and Jason, all of whom we managed to see, and we'll have to tell you about Zara, too, even though some bad weather prevented us from seeing her on the morning we had arranged to meet up.

Lori and Ian were working temporarily in Melbourne, having accepted a role on a large project out there. They both work for the same company as Kyle, which is where Lori and Kyle met, and they were set up in a very nice flat (that's the same as apartment for the Americans reading this) in the St. Kilda area just south of the city centre. Lucky for us, the flat was large and spacious and we had a great time staying with them when we were there, especially since we had missed some good times by not hanging out with them over the past year during our travels.

There was good food aplenty to choose from in Melbourne, both in the city centre and also in the neighbourhood where Lori and Ian lived

Liz also worked previously with Kyle but left London several years earlier to work for a travel company based in Melbourne. She first spent a couple of years taking groups of tourists around central and east Asia, including Russia, Mongolia and China, and finally ended up working in the head office for the company. We have no doubt she'll be running the show one day and it was good to hear that she was well on her way to doing so!

Rebekah worked with Dan at his company in London and had left a year or so earlier with her husband Jason to work in the Sydney office. After some time in Sydney, they moved to Melbourne and bought a house and dog as they settled in to their new lives. Jason was from the area in Melbourne where they moved and we'll come to that later in our story.

The last, but not least, person of mention in Melbourne was Zara, an old flatmate of ours that shared a flat with us in Bloomsbury in London. She had left London a few years earlier to travel in Australia, and she never came back after meeting a guy and deciding to stay in Oz. We'll also explain later about us trying to see her but failing due to Mother Nature's bad temper.

We arrived at Avalon airport, a small airport located to the west of the main city of Melbourne. As soon as we disembarked from the plane, we were swarmed by flies, something that we didn't expect to encounter so badly in the state of Victoria where Melbourne was located. At the airport, we purchased a return bus ticket to and from Southern Cross railway station in the centre of Melbourne. The bus journey took around an hour and we were loaded onto a comfortable air conditioned bus.

Upon arriving at Southern Cross station, Kyle called Lori to let her know we had arrived, and a few minutes later, Lori and her boyfriend Ian (now fiancée, and later this year will be her husband) came to meet us outside the station. Lori and Ian had both left work and luckily their office wasn't too far away. Once they arrived, Lori hailed down a cab and we all headed to their flat in St. Kilda. The weather when we arrived was gorgeous, a sunny, clear blue sky in the upper 20s (Celsius). It was all downhill after that, though...

Lori and Ian cooked dinner for us on a couple of occasions. On our first night at their place, we enjoyed a tasty rack of lamb with roasted vegetables and toasted bread that was all very tasty. On our second night, they made a favourite of ours - Mexican chicken fajitas. Yum! There was good food aplenty to choose from in Melbourne, both in the city centre and also in the neighbourhood where Lori and Ian lived. Just outside the gate to their apartment complex was a burger bar called Burger Edge, which served a wide selection of enormous burgers. We ended up eating a burger each and shared a portion of french fries. After having shared many meals for the past several months, that quantity of food was too much and we felt ill afterwards, even though the burgers and fries were delicious.

The final meal that we ate with Lori and Ian, on our third night in Melbourne, was at a restaurant called "The Pub", inside the large Crown complex, which was situated along the river in the Southbank area of the city centre. The Crown was a newer development that contained many restaurants, food courts, a multi-screen cinema, several shops, a luxury hotel and an enormous casino. We had planned to meet Lori and Ian after work at Federation Square, and so we took the tram from St. Kilda to the city centre, where we could conveniently get off at Federation Square without having to change to another tram. They were waiting for us and took us to Southbank.

Before arriving at the Crown, we stopped to have a quick drink at a Belgian bar along the river's edge before continuing our walk. It had been raining all day and was still a little bit drizzly and cold. When we finished a couple of beers each, we headed to the Crown and entered the grand main lobby of the building, where a large staircase led up to the next floor. To get to The Pub, we had to walk through the lobby of the hotel and through the adjoining indoor shopping area.

When we were seated at The Pub, we placed our order for chicken parmigiana, mango chicken strips, calamari and bruchetta, which we ended up sharing. A friend of Lori and Ian's also came along to dinner, Lucy. She was from the United States, but was currently working on the project that Lori and Ian were working on in Melbourne. After dinner, we all made our way into the casino to have a look around and play some games. Once everyone was tired, we walked back along the south bank of the river to the tram line where we all said goodbye to Lucy who headed home in the opposite direction as us when she went home.

For breakfast most mornings when Lori and Ian had gone to work, Dan cooked scrambled eggs with toast for breakfast, and gave Kyle a break from cooking. We hadn't had much opportunity to cook in Australia and it was nice to be in the same place for five days and getting into somewhat of a normal routine. One evening that we stayed in the flat - this was after Lori and Ian had gone to Noosa for the Christmas holiday period - we ordered Dominos Pizza and watched a DVD, "Catch and Release".

We had a lot of free time in Melbourne since we took it easy there. During the evenings when Lori and Ian cooked dinner for us, we watched a couple more DVDs with them, "The Science of Sleep" and "Black Sheep". We thought they were both pretty bad films, and Lori and Ian pretty much agreed with us, although we think that Ian may have secretly liked them both. We had bought "Black Sheep" in Cook Islands and were promised that it was the best quality DVD, but it was really poor quality and it made the film even worse than it would have been with proper sound and background music; having said that, there were some silly, but funny, moments that made us all smile. At least the film only cost us a couple of quid (that's the same as saying £2, or $3.90), since it was a dodgy copy!

Another DVD that we watched after Lori and Ian left was "Amazing Grace". It was a period film about one man's struggle to promote the emancipation of slaves in England, and was very good. Kyle particularly liked it since he had no details of that part of English history. The film was a winner, so we left it for Lori and Ian to watch when they returned from Noosa. By the way, Ian proposed to Lori in Noosa, something that we both had expected would happen for some reason. Congrats to them both!

Keeping on the whole cinema and film thing, we also splashed out on a Gold Club movie at the large cinema inside the Crown complex in the Southbank area. The Gold Club was a VIP experience that provided guests with large, comfortable, reclining leather seats, a small table between the two seats for food and drinks, table service by a designated waiter and a special food menu. The movie we chose to see was "Michael Clayton", produced by, directed by and starring George Clooney. We ordered a plate of mini hotdogs with chips (that's the same as french fries for the Americans reading this), chicken strips and a mixed platter of Vietnamese food, all of which was very good.

The main reason we had so much time in Lori and Ian's flat in St. Kilda to watch DVDs and work on our travel journal was because of the cold, windy and constant torrential downpours that afflicted our stay in Melbourne. The continuous heavy storms coming in off the sea didn't let up, and it made it difficult for us to muster enough energy to brave the elements and see the sights in the city.

Visiting with some friends of ours in Melbourne was the primary reason for us being there and we were fortunate to have met up with most of the ones that we had planned to see. The one person we didn't get to visit with was Zara, a former flatmate of ours. There were multiple problems that prevented us meeting up with her. She had a very hectic work schedule and was also leaving Melbourne to spend some holiday time in New Zealand during the Christmas break. There was also the whole torrential downpour thing, which kept us inside on the only free morning Zara had to meet up with us.

We were able to meet up with another friend from London, though, named Liz. We had arranged to meet up with Liz in the city centre for dinner one evening, which wasn't necessarily a good choice because it was pouring with rain and neither Kyle nor Dan had umbrellas. The tram stop outside Lori's flat didn't have any cover from the rain so we both stood under a tree until a tram came along, and then we ran out to hop on it. The tram was hot and sticky, and full of people who must have just left Christmas parties or various bars, so the inside of it reeked of alcohol, was super noisy, and contained several people swaying badly back and forth as the tram travelled into the city centre.

When the tram pulled up to Federation Square, we met Liz on a street corner, and she luckily had an umbrella under which we could remain partly dry. Liz led us down some small alleyways lined on either

side with cafes and restaurants, many of which had outside seating areas. It was still raining heavily at this point and we were all getting rather wet, so we quickly decided on Thai food, and went to a place that Liz highly recommended on Hardware Lane. The food ended up being delicious; we shared several dishes, green chicken curry, massaman curry, fish cakes, springs rolls and pad thai.

Drinks at a nearby, trendy bar were in order next. Horse Bazaar was a small, cosy establishment on another narrow lane a couple of blocks away called Little Lonsdale Street. Dan had a couple of mojitos while Kyle and Liz stuck with beers. After chatting awhile and listening to music in the bar, we decided to call it a night, and we walked back to the tram stop to head home. It wasn't really raining at that point and the night had turned cool, so the walk did us good. During the walk back to the tram stop, we passed a Chinese, or maybe Taiwanese, cafe that served bubble tea, and we made a mental note to return the next day to sample one, which we ended up doing.

The next day, we met Liz for a coffee at a cafe on Degraves Street, in the Centre Places section of the road, in the city centre. We chatted some more and complimented Liz on her haircut, which looked rather fetching, and then Dan was inspired to get a haircut himself. Luckily, there was a small salon nearby and we stopped there after saying goodbye to Liz. The guy that cut Dan's hair was from Normandy in France, and Dan had a good time chatting with him about Europe, and discussing why the Frenchman was in Australia. He also talked about our trip around the world and the fact that we couldn't believe the year was almost over.

One final person we wanted to meet up with in Melbourne was a friend of Dan's from the company he previously worked at in London. Dan had worked alongside Rebekah for a couple of years until she decided to move to Australia (first to Sydney, and then finally to Melbourne) with her husband, who was originally from Melbourne. Rebekah and Jason, her husband, had invited us both over to their place to stay the night and enjoy a typical Aussie barbecue. We had an excellent time with them and really liked their place.

To get to their house, we took the train to Beaconsfield from Flinders Train Station in the city centre. Once we arrived at the stop, Rebekah picked us up from the station in Beaconsfield and drove us to their house. Rebekah's friend Michelle was with her in the car, and they had just come from what we could see was a very fun wine tasting. Once we arrived at the house, we were met by Jason and Damien, Michelle's husband. Rebekah's sister, Naomi, was also in town visiting for the Christmas holidays but was sleeping since she had only arrived in Australia from England the day before and was suffering from jetlag. In addition to the humans we met, we made the acquaintance of three adorable dogs, the infamous Onky, and Michelle and Damien's two dogs, who will remain nameless since Onky is really the pivotal character in this story.

A fun Australian pool game that everyone could participate in was on the cards that evening. While we played, we filled ourselves up on several snacks that were laid out on the bar in Rebekah and Jason's games room. There were chips, crackers and a wide selection of dips to eat, and a fridge stocked full of various beers, extremely cold and delicious. The game was fun because it was always difficult to predict the winner. Each player had to draw a number at the start of the game, and then try to knock in all of the balls that didn't have that number on it. After playing a few games of pool and drinking several beers, it was time to move outside to the large patio and balcony area to enjoy the barbecue that Jason prepared for everyone.

The table was covered with plates of food. There were sausages, burgers and rolls, as well as coleslaw and salad. When everyone was full, Michelle popped home quickly to pick up a board game for the group to play for the evening. The game was fun, but we couldn't remember the name of it (too many beers!). What we did remember was that each player on their turn read out a question, and the first person to shout out the correct answer was able to roll the die and move around the board towards the final square. Halfway though the game, it started to rain, as it so often did, and Jason opened up the huge umbrella at the table to keep everyone dry.

We never mentioned above that Naomi had awoken from her slumber to join us for the evening. That was shortly after we arrived at Rebekah and Jason's place, so she actually joined us early for the games of pool and beers before the barbecue. After the board game had finished, we played a coordination and memory game that was difficult after the beers, so it didn't last too long. We finished the evening off by returning inside to play some more games of pool, and then Michelle and Damien left, and Naomi went to bed feeling exhausted. We stayed up to play some more pool with Jason, but then grew tired ourselves and headed off to bed. Rebekah had chosen to clean up instead of playing pool and we passed through the kitchen to say good night to her before crashing for the night.

The next morning, Rebekah gave us a tour of their enormous house and then made us both breakfast with tea. Our train back into Melbourne was in the morning, and Rebekah and Naomi drove us to the station before we said our goodbyes. Back at Flinders station in the city centre, we saw a small shop called Lord of the Fries, which we thought was amusing, so we shared a portion. They were yummy!

We had returned from Rebekah's to Lori and Ian's on Christmas Eve and the sky had cleared up somewhat, so we went to the city centre to walk around and see a few sights. The weather was very cool, and it felt more like home than we expected it to be in Australia in the summer, but it was nice to have a blue sky with a few fluffy white clouds above us. We went back to the Crown and walked along some of the main shopping streets in Melbourne.

Our flight to Sydney, our last stop on the trip, left Melbourne on Christmas Day and we packed up that morning and headed to Southern Cross rail station where we caught a bus to Melbourne's Avalon airport. We ended up hailing a taxi from outside Lori and Ian's flat to the rail station and we had some time to spare before the bus left for the airport. We had Burger King for lunch while we waited, and then boarded the bus to Avalon a couple of minutes before it left.

As before, the bus journey took almost an hour, and we found ourselves checked in and on the plane to Sydney before we knew it. We were due to meet up with Dan's friend Carl in Sydney and had planned to stay at his flat. The bad weather that we experienced in Melbourne was more than made up for in Sydney and we had a brilliant time in the largest city in Australia before heading home to the UK. Read on to find out more...