It was time to leave Sydney and move on to Melbourne. I was flying with a low cost airline Tiger, and when I booked it I paid to check-in 15kg of baggage as it had weighed 14.4kg on the way to Sydney and nothing had changed in between time and yet when I put it on the check in desk scales it said 16.7kg and they charged me an extra $30…tossers. So not in a particularly good mood at this point and then the flight was delayed for over an hour! Finally got to Melbourne just after lunch, dropped my gear off at the Nomads Industry hostel (one of my roommates turned out to be a fit hot German girl who was working as an 'exotic dancer') and went for a wander around the city.

It was strange being back in backpacker mode having stayed with family and been in a bit of a comfort zone, but I instantly got a good feel about the place. I had picked up a guide to Melbourne at the airport and had earmarked the Australian Centre for the Moving Image which seemed like my sort of place as it had exhibits about film, TV and cinema. As luck would have it a new exhibition had just started called 'Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood'. I didn't know a great deal about him but the promotional blurb sounded good. Well what a fantastic exhibition it was and an education about artistic movements in the States in the 1960's. I never knew he was an actor, director, painter, sculptor, photographer and had been friends with or influenced famous people in the same fields; such as Andy Warhol. His own giant pop art paintings and portraits were just outstanding. I stayed at the exhibition until it closed and thenheaded back to the hostel.

As I prepared to go for run I got chatting to an American guy in my room called Clint who was on the bunk under me. I asked the standard question, "So where have you been on your travels?" and my God I wish I hadn't. he replied by asking, "have you seen the dance at the end of Slumdog Millionaire?", which I had, and he proceeded to give me his iPhone and told me to watch a video. Somehow he had put together a montage of 5-second clips of places he had been (complete with graphics!), set to the music at the end of the film, showing him doing the dance with the people he had met. Well this bloody self-indulgent tosh went on for about 3 mins. I was bored stiff by the end. Now I appreciated it was something a bit different but on the other hand it was attention seeking to the nth degree…his card was truly marked with me.

After my run went to make some food in the hostel kitchen, what a pitiful size it was for the amount of people, what a farce. And you had to pay a $20 deposit to get a chuffing pan! I could tell that I wouldn't' be extending my stay past the two nights I had booked. Had a couple of pints in the hostel bar and aslo entered the Killer Pool comp and got knocked out at the half way stage (no surprise), but was too tired to go out and so hit the sack before 12pm.

Well it was a gorgeous day when I woke up and I decided I was going to go by boat to Williamstown for the day, having been recommended to go by a bloke who I met on Robinson Crusoe Island. It was only an hour down the Yarra river but was supposed to be a complete contrast to the city. After visiting the Tourist Info centre on arrival I wanted to do the heritage walk around the coast of the town. It was a really quiet, pleasant walk all the way round to the beach. Then had a gorgeous barramundi fillet at an old fashioned pub for lunch and then sat in the sun at the pier until the ferry came to pick us back up.

Back in the city I wanted to go up the Eureka Tower in the dark to see the city from the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere but I had some time to kill and so went to sit on a grass verge by the river to do some people watching whilst the sun came down. It was a beautiful evening and with a busker playing the saxophone in the background a relaxing way to spend an evening. The city now in darkness it was time to go up the tower.

Seeing a city from above at night was a completely different experience to other tower's I had been up and very spectacular, particularly the MCG being lit up for a day-night one-day cricket match. Returned to the hostel and quickly popped in to the bar and was confronted with a transvestite singing songs, apparently it was 'Tranny Tuesdays', thank god I was booked in to stay at the YHA tomorrow night.