We arrived in Melbourne at 5pm, on a weekday, really not the time you want to be driving into a massive city. The traffic was crazy and we stood out like a sore thumb in our little van! I like to think it was admiring glances we were receiving rather than dodgy looks! We had no idea where we were going or where we going to park up the van for the night, St Kilda beach maybe? It’s fair to say we are pretty relaxed about where we’re going to sleep for the night, as long as we get something sorted by 5 minutes before we close our eyes, all is fine and dandy! After driving around Melbourne, actually leaving Melbourne and getting stuck on a freeway and nearly checking into a motel we stumbled across Albert Park, perfect a nice secluded place to park up and sleep. Actually it was so perfect that we after sleeping at St Kilda beach on our second night, parking up in Braden’s driveway on the third night, we made it our permanent residence for the rest of the week. Nothing like living with nature, being a stone’s throw away from a lake, and even having our own personal toilets (well ok they were public toilets but nobody else really used them!). Shower time was held at the nearby leisure centre, a mere 10 minute walk from our spot (we’re painting a lovely picture here aren’t we!?). Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones how had the same idea, a few times I had to share the showers with three French girls who also had a Wiked Camper. Typical French just took the biscuit, doing their dishes in the sinks and floating around the changing rooms naked, how dare they! Honestly its people like that that give us backpackers a bad name. Quite clearly the Traffic Warden that was contemplating sticking a ticket on our window on our last morning before dropping the van off thought we were them, honestly I got the scare of my life when I opened our little curtain and saw him peering in the window. Good job Dean was on the ball, threw himself into the front seat and got us out of their before he had a chance to stick the ticket on our window. Yeah we got one over on the law! ;o)

So we really loved Melbourne, so much in fact that we booked the van for an extra night so we could stay a bit longer. Love the funky little shops, the trams, the little alleyways full of amazing food, wine & coffee and the sushi! It kind of reminded us of London. Our first day there we had pretty miserable weather and were wondering what we were going to do with our time. First things first we had to head out to buy ourselves some proper clothes & shoes, it was definitely time to upgrade our wardrobe from beachwear and flipflops! We made the mistake of driving into the City, honestly we knew parking was crazy but $10 an hour is taking it a bit far! We went to drive into one place, checked out the crazy prices and reversed straight back out.....is that even legal?! Eventually we found a spot for $14 for the day. We jumped on the free tourist tram and went straight for Harbour Town in Docklands, aka the factory outlet stores, aka the only cheap place to buy clothes in Oz! We managed to get ourselves some pretty good bargains.....Dean’s $10 jeans were the best bargain I think we’ll ever find, no matter where we are in the world. We spent the night parked up by St Kilda beach, watching the sun go down, enjoying a glass of goon.

The sun came out on our second day and stayed for the rest of our time here so the days when we weren’t busy seeing the sites and visiting markets we just exercised and chilled out in our back garden (Albert Park) or hung out in our new neighbourhood, St Kilda. If we were going to base ourselves in Melbourne St Kilda would definitely be the area for us, it’s hard to describe what it’s like but I’m pretty sure everyone loves it! We had a fab Sunday their walking along the beach, visiting the market, having a wonder around Luna Park and finishing it all off with a cold, large glass of vino on Fitzroy Street. We were tempted to jump on the ferry to Tasmania but decided to keep that for later on in our trip!

We managed to catch up with Braden and Tayah, our friends from Melbourne that we met whilst travelling from Samui to Bangkok. We’d promised whilst partying on the overnight sleeper that we’d let them show us Melbourne’s sites! They showed us some funky Melbourne pubs (complete with fake grass!), the nicest sushi joint on the planet and introduced us to AFL....Australian Football League, a mix between football and rugby. The Ozzies go crazy for it! Felt weird being at a football match where the two teams sit together. I was rooting for the Tigers (underdogs) and Dean for the Magpies (team that always wins!) and guess what the Pies won, typical Dean not wanting to be on the loosing team!! ;o) Thank god we’d bought some warm clothes the day before, it was a wee bit chilly! We caught the train back to Braden’s, Braden and Tayah got ready to snuggle up in their cozy bed and we crashed out in the driveway!

Melbourne must have been the time for seeing old faces, we managed to catch up with Dean’s friend from work, Ryan his girlfriend Katie and their Ozzie mate Mike. We’d been in touch with them since we left home; they were travelling New Zealand and then heading to Oz around about the same time as us. What a fab night we ended up having, although it wasn’t looking too promising at the beginning! The Comedy Festival was happening whilst we were there so we went along to a free gig that was happening in a ‘backpackers’ bar. The place was so dead when we arrived, the first few comedians were absolutely dire, but by the end (with the help of Katie!) it ended up being a funny night. Far too much beer was consumed which made us miss the tram back to the van, having to pay for a taxi and tell him our address was ‘The Wiked Camper, Albert Park’ and almost get a ticket the next morning because we slept far too late!

Our month with the van was up so it was time to return our home, which meant it was time to think about doing our first stint of seasonal work, got to get it done to make sure we can stay in Oz for another year if we want too. We’d spent some time in an internet cafe opening bank accounts, get tax numbers etc and had called the National Harvest Line but the only jobs available were for people with their own transport, rubbish! When we visited Rockford wines in the Barrosa, Joe Rockford gave us a contact number for a women who hires backpackers to work in the vineyards, it wasn’t ideal that’d we’d have to travel back on ourselves but needs must, we needed to get some $’s coming in! We gave her a call, she told us to get there asap and that was our decision made for us! We dropped the van off the following morning. It was a sad occasion seeing our little Jock Patch go back to his home! We then bus and trained it back into the city carrying our backpacks for the first time in a while, wow the new clothes were making them just a little bit heavier than they used to be! We tried to book a train to Adelaide, they were all booked, so booked an overnight bus to leave that night....sorted! We’d been in such a rush to drop the van off that morning that we had no time to hit the leisure centre to shower so we paid to use the showers at the train/bus station, got freshened up, put our bags into storage and waited patiently, with a bottle of wine, for our bus to leave that evening!

Grape picking here we come!

Lots of Love
Chelle & Dean xxx