So we arrived at Heathrow excited and managed to get our seats changed for nicer ones by talking and being nice to the girl at the counter so the trip had started well and we went through all the dull security procedures and Rory obviously was like extra checked because he looks real dodgy as we know. We were checked in quite early and then had to waste sometime in the usual way by exploring the things we NEED in all the electrical stores and playing games on the shiny iPads in the apple store. We established that Rory isn’t particularly good at games and I am in desperate need of some Beats headphones from Dr Dre who seems to have already released more headphones than good commercially popular songs.
Finally we could board what was in fact the biggest plane in the world and we made our way to our seats, in the cockpit! The original buzz of long-haul travel wore off after around 30 mins. We tried desperately not to do anything fun for as long as possible so we could save them up for later. Then we got bored and played the games on our little screens – best games were magma zone and bowling both of which I beat Rory at – just saying. Then we got our meal and things which were needed but obviously not great. Think it was a chicken and mince concoction which was alright then blah blah blah blah some ridiculous amount of hours later we were still in the plane! We were kind of tired and despite getting up and walking around a bit we could do with some time not sitting down because you get a bit stiff as you can probably imagine, but then we arrived at Hong Kong and could explore the airport and steal some Wi-fi as we were missing the internet which is a bit sad but that’s how it is and my iPhone came back to full capabilities! We did all the essentials such as checking Facebook and uploading pictures, checking the news and the weather. We didn’t really understand what we were supposed to do in between flights and we just wondered around really and tried to follow people that we thought might have been on our plane so we could get to the right place to re-board. Back on the plane and we had decided to watch a few films to kill a chunk of time and fit the meals and games around them and perhaps see if we can get some sleeps so we were a little less knackered.
More time sitting in the same place in the same position passed by and the plane was landing in Melbourne, Australia. We got through customs fine but they stole my sandwich because you can’t bring meat into the country, and the guy was obviously hungry. I gave my sandwich to Rory before we went through because he had some food of his own and I was happy for him to have to deal with that and I could just stroll through with no issues! Had a small scare when we checked our travel cards and Rory’s didn’t work but we figured it might work tomorrow and we will worry about it then and focus on getting to the hostel now. We asked some bus driver guy what bus we needed to catch to get to the part of the city we needed and he pointed us in the right direction. Got to the hostel and got rid of our big bags and sat in the bar for a while to kill some time as we got there at like 7 and you couldn’t check in till 2!
At around 9 we figured that things would now be open in the city to amuse us and we could maybe sort out some food. Got to the city centre and basically wondered around aimlessly. We sat in McDonalds for like an hour waiting for the breakfast menu to turn into the normal menu so we could get some chips! We spent this time laughing at some of the quite weird people in McDonalds at this time and stealing Wi-Fi, again! After a while we noticed that a lot of people were wearing Aussie Football tops which made us think about maybe going to see a game if there was one so we ventured over to the stadium by generally following anyone wearing these team colours and asking a quite odd old guy on a bike who was very excited when we talked to him because well he didn’t look like he had a lot else going on at all. Got to the MCG stadium, 2 hours before the game started and sat in the seats we had feeling pretty tired and hungry. Finally the game started and life was good again! By the end of the 2 hour match we realised that we could probably play the game just as well as most of them – didn’t look too hard at all. We then walked back to the hostel because we hadn’t yet discovered the free tram that would have taken us there with a lot less effort.

After successfully finding our way back to the backpackers hostel we checked in and found our room on the first floor. The room was nothing special, just one room with seven, extremely squeaky, bunk beds! Being a 14 bed dorm was really easy to find people to talk to and although we were tired made friends with a couple of people in there. Mainly a girl called Janet from California, whose accent we enjoyed laughing at as it was so typically American. She had decided a whole plan for the next day and also decided we would be going with her. Except for the earlier than welcome wakeup call it was really nice to have so many ideas of what to see and how to get around. Mainly the free tram which came in handy many times!
We looked around the docklands, which had some very expensive looking boats, a nice shopping area and a Hollywood-esque boulevard with all the stars past and present shown. The views from the dock were awesome and have started our picture collection perfectly. After that we caught the free tram once again until we reached the famous Flinders Street Station. From there we followed Janet, who had nearly become our free tour guide, to the casino Crown Plaza Complex. It was amazing, I had never been to one before but I could tell that it was a particularly big one. They were nice people there and gave us a free five dollars to tempt us into, but it didn’t really work as Tom and Janet just kept it and I used it on the roulette and then proceeded to leave without spending another dollar!!
When got back to the hostel we found that many of the previous roommates had left to continue their travels and had been replaced by a whole new set of people. This was nice to have fresh people to chat to and quickly became friends with a couple, Natalie and Paul, and another American girl called Megan. From there we spent our time in the swanky bar area of the hostel where we spent the night relaxing with a few beers and getting to know all them and hear tales of their previous travels. Paul and Natalie have already been away for 8 months and still have south America on their list to visit, but as they have nearly finished Australia they gave us loads of tips for when were in the campervan and at different places along the way! Again in the morning we had a far too early wakeup call by Janet, except this time it wasn’t just us but nearly the whole room even if they hadn’t agreed to come along with us.
However, they all did seem happy enough to explore the city together which was nice as everybody was easy to get along with. To make sure we saw the main parts of the city then Janet’s Tour was taken round the second half of the city we hadn’t previously wandered through. This included getting the free tram the opposite way and getting off in an area with some truly majestic buildings and beautiful parks as well. They were great for loads of photos in the sunshine, and we got slowly more and more adventurous throughout the day. To the point that we had leaf throwing photos, jumping air shots and using landmarks as props! By the afternoon Paul and Natalie went to meet their friend and so we left them at Federation Square and set off toward St. Kilda beach which we thought was half an hour’s walk away. An hour and a half later, we had reached the sea! We walked in the sand and of course took some more pictures! It was very sunny and it seemed like a completely different place to the bustling city centre we started at.
We then got back to the hostel and began preparing for our early departure in the morning to get to Sydney and as the saying going old replaces new as some more guests had arrived to the night before we left. A couple of British girls from Leeds and Newcastle had checked into our room and they were very nice for the brief moment we saw them but it was our time to go and after an incredibly early wake up we were on our way to Sydney.