After spending one day in the nations capital Canberra, I jumped back on the greyhound bus and headed for Melbourne. The journey was going to last around ten hours - a long time for UK standards but just down the road for Aussies! Now, I'm sure I'm not the only one that does this when waiting for a bus, but just before you get on I always notice a couple of people you definitely don't want to sit next to. In this instance it was a fat woman and an alcoholic. I was praying that I didn't have to share the ten hour bus ride experience with either of these people next to me on the bus. But sods law I was next to the fat woman who looked like she needed to apply for the 'Biggest Loser' TV show. So I didn't have much room to relax on the bus and not a lot of sleep on the night bus.

On arrival at Melbourne Southern Cross station I headed for the hostel I had booked - Urban Central backpackers. I had heard some good reports about this hostel and it was also recommended in the Lonely Planet. Not that Lonely Planet is the most reliable book at times though. Urban Central is located in South Melbourne, south of the Yarra river and opposite a 24 hour Macca's which does a roaring trade with hundreds of hungry backpackers close by. It is also close to the Crown Casino - the largest casino in the southern hemisphere . I arrived at Urban Central at around 7am. I couldn't check in until 2pm so left my luggage in the luggage store room and chilled out in the bar area for a while. They have a pretty good set-up at Urban Central. Good kitchen facilities, internet, a cheap bar which stays open until 1am, however the actual bar area stays open for 24 hours so that people can continue to drink, socialise and most importantly watch the football at weekends. They also do a free breakfast, a free BBQ once a week and have live music, quiz nights and the like. It's definitely one of the best hostels I have stayed in in Australia so far. It's also pretty clean and not too noisy.

On checking in I met this couple staying in the same room as me. They were looking for jobs as well but it was a similar story to mine. A lot of effort and no success. This was becoming a regular theme wherever I went. I hadn't met many backpackers who had found work over the last few months. The recession has bitten hard and Australia, a place that you could easily find work for a long time - no matter what your trade - has now closed ranks and jobs are scarce at best, temporarily at least. My plan, though, was to give it a go for three weeks, register for as many agencies as possible and see what happens. The last resort would be fruit picking but I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.
I had seen that Australia were playing South Africa in a Twenty20 cricket match at the Melbourne cricket ground (MCG) the day I arrived so I decided to go along. I had always wanted to go to the MCG, which is one of the biggest and best sporting arenas in the world and this seemed like an ideal time to go with a big crowd expected. It was a fantastic night and a very good game in front of nearly 70,000 people. It wasn't full - the MCG has a capacity of around 100,000 but it was a great atmosphere. The Aussies defeated South Africa on the night with the help of the debutant David Warner's swashbuckling innings giving the Aussies a bit of revenge for the test series defeat a few weeks earlier. I had an excellent view in the stadium, but as a person that doesn't like heights, being sat on the top row of a 100,000 capacity stadium was a little scary at first. Still, I got some great photos.

The rest of my first week in Melbourne was spent mainly looking for work and registering my job agencies. It was becoming increasingly apparent that there was no work with most agencies signing me up only to say that the market is a little ' slow' at the moment. A far cry from July in Perth when I w as inundated with calls and job offers. Anyhow, I had the Melbourne Metro YHA booked for two weeks during the Australian Open Tennis so my plan was to try to find work until then and if nothing crops up then I will look into fruit picking.

I spent an afternoon at St Kilda beach which was nice, but in my view St Kilda beach is too busy and is nothing in comparison to the unspoilt tranquillity of the west coast beaches or the beauty of Sydney's northern beaches. St Kilda beach is very busy and very dirty but there is a good vibe at night with lots of bars filled mainly with backpackers it seemed. I think almost half of Ireland lives in St Kilda. I liked St Kilda but I preferred staying closer to the city centre. I also walked down to Melbourne park to watch some of the qualifying matches for the tennis, specifically the British women Elena Baltacha and Katie O'Brien. It was free entry for the qualifying and there were some good matches. I also purchased my five day ground pass for an absolute bargain of $100 (45 quid). This would give me entry to the grounds and all courts except the two main arenas - Rod Laver & Hisense arenas. A five day ground pass for 45 pounds would be unheard of at Wimbledon. An absolute bargain!

After one week staying at Urban Central I reluctantly moved to the YHA. I say reluctantly partly because Urban Central is a great hostel and I met lots of people there but also partly because, although YHA hostels are almost always safe, clean and quiet there is usually a distinct lack of a social scene in many of them. It turned out though, that Melbourne Metro YHA was a little more sociable than other YHA's in which I had stayed and I ended up meeting many people there.

Before I talk about the Tennis, I guess I need to devote a bit of time to wax lyrical about Melbourne. I absolutely love the city. For me, it is my favourite city in Australia so far. It beats Sydney hands down. For one it is so much more chilled out than Sydney. Sydney is so busy. Too busy. No-one has any time there and the pace of life is quite frenetic, much like London. Melbourne, by contrast, is a lot more relaxed, even though the population of Melbourne is very similar to Sydney. Not as relaxed as Perth, it has to be said, which is pretty much horizontal by laid back standards. But for me Melbourne has so much going for it. Sport, entertainment and live music are plentiful. Sydney may beat Melbourne on Tourist attractions, surfing and beaches but as a place to live or stay in for while Melbourne is much nicer in my opinion. The Yarra river, which runs through the centre of Melbourne really gives the city character, with lots of bustling bars along the riverside. A group of us went down there to watch the fireworks on Australia day and ended up in one of those bars - PJ O'Briens. Federation square is also a great spot with lots of entertainment, bars and a big screen which was showing the Tennis during Australian open fortnight.

Enough about the city though - anyone would think I was working for the tourist board. Onto the Tennis. As I mentioned earlier, I had a five day ground pass and wanted to use most the days during the first week, when a lot of the best players would be playing on the outside courts. I had a couple of job agency interviews during the week so I couldn't go on the Tuesday or Friday but all the other days were possibilities. I tended too check out then order of play on the website the night before and decide whether to go or not and plan which games I wanted to see. I love the tennis so I was in my element moving freely from court to court watching lots of the seeded players. Just some of the players I saw in action were Hewitt, Murray, Moya, Ancic, Nalbandian, Tipsarevic, Demetieva, Venus & Serena Williams, Petrova, Baghdatis, Soderling, Mayer, Del Potro, Mauresmo, Jamie Murray, Haas, Safin, Simon, Nestor, Zjimonic, Blake, Gasquet and Gonzalez.

The atmosphere at the matches is a lot different to Wimbledon. At some games it is a like a football match, especially if it involves an Eastern European player. Swedish and Cypriot players also had big following and also Chile. One match in particular involving Chilean's biggest sports star - Fernando Gonzalez will live long in the memory. Gonzalez was facing Richard Gasquet. And the Chileans love their tennis - that's for sure! The atmosphere was incredible and the match lasted over five hours with Gasquet blowing a two set lead to go down 10-8 n the final set. Much to the delight of the Chilean army who celebrated my setting off a flare at the end. Imagine the furore that sort of behaviour would create at Wimbledon!

I used four days of my ground pass in the first week and decided to use my last day on men's finals day, just to sample the atmosphere and watch the match with thousands of others on the big screen in Garden Square. This decision was made a little easier as during most the second week of the tennis, temperatures soared in Melbourne to 45 degrees. The final was Nadal Vs Federer. The two best players in the world locking horns once again. Federer looking to equal Pete Sampras grand slam titles and Nadal looking to win his first slam on a hard court and hold his number one ranking. A fitting end to a fantastic tournament was won by Nadal in five sets. Where was Murray? Well, there is always next year…….

My two weeks at the YHA were up and as it was fully booked I had to move back to Urban Central. My new plan was to go fruit picking. Office work was looking like a no-go so I started getting some numbers and rang some of the working hostels in Mildura & Shepparton - two harvest areas fairly close to Melbourne. Then, after making a decision to leave Melbourne to head for Shepparton I received a call from a lady I sent my CV to, in relation to events work. She asked if I wanted a couple of days work. I wasn't in a position to turn down work so I accepted. I had no idea what I would be doing but knew that I would be working at the MCG for the Australia - New Zealand one day cricket match. It turned out that my job was to fry chips, potato cakes, dim Sims, spring rolls and doughnuts. Oh the joys of being skin and taking any job you have to! Still, it was money and led to a further days work at the St Kilda festival. Maybe the experience will stand me in good stead for a career as a professional chef or maybe a position at McDonalds. I think the latter is more likely than the former…!

On completing my second days work I decided to go to Shepparton to go fruit picking. Jobs are impossible to get at the moment so I will try my luck in Shepparton and see what I can get. It will be a new experience that is for sure! And an interesting one……..