Due to some financial restrictions, i.e. I had $60 to my name, I had to leave Joanne in Brisbane to head down to Melbourne to make my fortune. The first thing to note on arrival in Melbourne...it sure isn't as warm as Queensland and since I arrived shortly after midnight, probably the shorts and flip-flops were not the greatest idea.

The day after I arrived Dani (my fellow Scottish friend from Sydney) arrived from Cairns and was equally desperate for some work. We spent the next few days job hunting and visiting every free tourist attraction in the city until I got a job as a door to door electricity salesman, without a doubt the worst job I've ever had! Me and 4 other bacpackers were given a company car and sent us off into some ridiculously remote part of the Victorian bush to knock on peoples doors and tell them why they should change their electricity provider, despite not knowing 1 reason why they should since I did in fact fall asleep during the training. Not surprisingly I lasted lss than 3 hours, which also included having a nap in the park.

Luckily on arrival back in to the city, Dani had managed to find us another fundraising job. I say luckily since I was now down to $7.60 which I promptly splashed on a celebratory chocolate cake. The fundraising was OK, though it is quite tough to get overly passionate about the North Melbourne Lost Dogs Home. Though, saying this I dedicated every sign up to the recently departed Fergus Deighan. Now that we were earning and not feeling guilty or extravagent about buying a tomato to have on my dry bread we were able to head out more and get to know the city, which I really started to like.

A few short weeks later and it was Christmas time! - Woohoo!! It was definitely strange not being at home but the fact Christmas is so different over here meant I didnt get too homesick since it hardly even felt like the festive season. Christmas certainly isnt as big a deal over here, partly because it's so multi-cultural and partly cause the postcards of snowmen and carols about bleak midwinters dont have the same effect at 32 degrees! Me and Dani had Christmas lunch with our friends at the hostel where they'd put on a massivefeast for everyone before hitting the beach at St Kilda where the entire city had seemed to congregate for BBQ's and swimming.

It seems in Melbourne anyway, that Christmas day takes a backseat to boxing day and the annual boxing day test at the MCG, which this year was against South Africa. We watched the game on massive screens in the city before the mass exodus out the city to the beach again. It was all very different from the frost and dark nights of home, but think I could get used to it!

After a few more days in Melbourne it was time to take the ridiculously long bus to Sydney (17 hours) to surprise Joanne for New Year...

James