Melbourne- Getting by with a little help from my friends

“Here’s to tall ships. Here’s to small ships. Here’s to all the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships so here’s to you and me.” Irish proverb

One of my favourite things about travelling is the people, without a doubt. We’ve met some absolutely awesome people in every country who have inspired us, guided us, supported us, excited us, made us laugh, made us cry, and generally made our trip so unforgettable. Many of the people we’ve met we probably won’t see again, but we now have friends on all continents, so who knows, our paths may cross again. People say the world is a small place, and we’ve realised how true this is on so many occasions! I’ve bumped into an old school friend by chance at a bar in New Zealand, met a couple from Colchester in Vietnam, who’s parents live in the village next to mine, and a guy from Cambridge who worked with two of our closest friends, on a tiny island in Fiji! Seriously, what are the chances? We’ve obviously made some great friends for life too, who we will be seeing without question again (yes Mat and Sofi, this does mean a trip to Chile), but it’s always so sad saying goodbye to the people you just gel with, especially as someone is always moving on in this nomadic lifestyle.

But conversely, perhaps one of the best things is meeting up with old friends; reuniting with people from the old days or those you simply haven’t seen for too long. We’ve been so lucky so far to travel alongside old friends for much of the trip, and when we arrived to Australia the only real plan we had was to meet up with these people!

We arrived into Australia in Melbourne at the ungodly hour of 2am. After a night slumming it in a cheap ass hostel (still £40, that would have got us 5* in Asia😡) we got in touch with Tim and Steph. We’ve met up with these guys in 80% of the counties we’ve frequented, and by chance they have based themselves in Melbourne! Tim is now working for Rome2Rio and Steph was about to start a consultancy role in the city. These guys were yet again absolute legends. We arrived at their place to be greeted with a table laid for a roast dinner (our first in over six months!), and the offer for us to stay with them! We’ve done quite a bit of travel with these guys so we get on really well. It’s so nice to have some normality restored In a new city, but also to hang out with familiar faces again! The building they lived in also had a gym and a pool, which we took full advantage of! Every time we meet up though, we seem to end up getting shit faced, and this was no shift from the status quo. After a beautiful roast lamb (cooked on the barbie of course), we got the Lonely Planet tour of the city from our local guides, before heading to the cider and wine festival on the river! I mean, what are the chances this would be on whilst we arrive! The city at night is just as beautiful as parts of London with back alley streets similar to Brighton. The word “artisan” springs to mind at nearly every turn down these lanes, with hipster coffee and brioche burgers lining most stores. The thing that Melbourne is really famous for though is the fantastic array of street art that’s literally everywhere to see. Seriously, we’ve seen some pretty impressive stuff so far on this trip, but the street art we saw in Melbourne took gold, silver and bronze! What’s really cool is there are some streets that apparently evolve monthly with new works; id love to see this in action!

We had a week planned for Melbourne, and lots to see! We spent our time exploring the cities suburbs, back alleys and main sights. This is definitely a nice city to just wander around. There’s a really interesting mix of old school buildings clearly from Victorian rule, modern high rise buildings and old school shop fronts. There’s obviously a massive foodie culture here too (which makes me very happy) with huge Greek and Chinese quarters offering a wonderful variety of treats, as well as one of the best food markets I’ve ever been to. The street art again was out on full show for us, and is even more impressive during the day! Alleys like this attract hoards of millennials to get that perfect Instagram photo, but I just wanted to snap the art. 

We hadn’t realised, but the Melbourne comedy festival was on when we arrived! Hundreds of venues offered tons of comedians over two weeks, we had far too much to choose from! We ended up meeting one of the comedians, a guy called Jeeves Verma who was bloody hilarious! His whole sketch was based around his life growing up in an Indian family, which really reminded us of our time in India staying with families in Jaipur and Bombay. We could have spent hundreds of dollars on tickets for shows as there was just so much on!

We were also super lucky to end up seeing the Book of Mormon whilst we were here. The two of us and Steph entered into a lottery to get half price tickets. Sadly we didn’t win but Steph kindly donated hers to us as she’s seen it already. Wow, I had heard it was a funny show, but we were in absolute stitches from start to finish! We ended up with front row centre seats too, so I got to perv with all the musical equipment under the stage too! Seriously, if you aren’t easily offended, go see this show immediately! 

Our whole time in Melbourne wasn’t a cultural furore, we did some boring stuff too! One of our favourite ways to experience a city is to just wander around. Melbourne is perfect for this with a huge variety of districts each with their own flair. We spent a day chilling at Brighton Beach with Steph enjoying the vibrant (and sometimes eccentric) beach huts, before walking to St Kilda, another beach side district. The walk itself was absolutely lovely and it was great to see the Australian outdoor ethos so alive, with so many people out and about running, cycling, roller skating, or chasing their dogs; definitely a place I could see myself enjoying more. We even managed to spot a pod of dolphins as we walked along the coast. We also spent a day enjoying the botanical gardens with a picnic by the river. The punting on offer was somewhat unexpected and obviously reminded us of Cambridge, but we avoided this due to the excessive cost! The gardens themselves are stunning and vast! We spent a good 4 hours exploring the different parts of them and enjoying the natural flora and fauna. It’s so nice to be somewhere so peaceful whilst being so close to the city. 

I started this blog by talking about meeting up with old friends. We weren’t done with just Tim and Steph that’s for sure! We spent the evening before the comedy show with our old uni friend Izzy. She’s been on the move for the best part of 4 years now. Her travel photos were one of my main points of inspiration for this trip and definitely gave us a few must see spots on the route. Izzy has been Melbourne for the past 6 months and is working as a video producer. She took us to a very quirky bar hidden down a dark alley behind some bins. Without her I definitely wouldn’t have known it was there! This place felt like walking straight back to Dalston, where you get cocktails served in vintage tea pots, the the music is all played from a gramophone, and beard oil and tattoo sleeves are more commonplace than anything else. We spent the whole evening until the show just chatting about our trips and Uni times. It’s great to reflect on all the amazing things we’ve done with a fellow traveler, as you can easily forget all the mini things that can easily make an adventure.

I can’t mention Izzy without mentioning her epic adventure doing rural work for her 3 months. Most people just end up picking fruit; that sort of thing. Izzy made a snap decision to book a one way flight to Sydney after breaking up with her long term boyfriend, to work as a cowgirl at a massive cattle farm! The stories she was telling us were mystifying, terrifying, and upsetting at times, but wow what an adventure! She ended up being at the ranch for 6 months, and by the sounds of it would go back in a heartbeat! Seriously mate, if you’re reading this, sell your story and make a movie!

We also ended up meeting up with Jennifer, a family friend of Kelly’s. These guys haven’t actually seen each other for 17 years, but it was like they saw each other yesterday! That’s when you know you’ve got a good friend, regardless of how long you’ve not seen each other it’s just like old times. We ended up being out until about 2am with them at a local club (well, sort of club) in a suburb outside the city centre. Jen, it was lovely to meet you, and we may well take you up on that offer of the South of France! 

To finish off our time in South Australia, we headed out to the Yarra Valley to meet up with an old school friend Rachel. Rach and I have a number of mutual friends, we’ve worked at the same restaurants, and went to the same school, but didn’t really become that close until a couple of years back. We ended up spending a day kayaking 8 miles, dragging a boat across a field, running away from cows, and sliding down reservoirs. Yes, this sounds ridiculous, and it definitely was!

Rachel has been living in the Yarra Valley for a few years now, and has made quite a name for herself at the Cherry Orchard she works for as marketing director. Since being there, she’s introduced a number of awesome cherry drinks including a knockout cider, a damn tasty cherry Weiss beer, and a couple of super healthy cherry drinks. This has sent her all across Australia and even across Asia selling her products. Anyway….

We spent a day exploring the cherry farms and learning about how it all works, followed by a cheeky tour of a local vineyard Rachel also works at. The Yarra valley is synonymous with excellent wines, and I can see how it’s gained this reputation! All the wines, from Shiraz to Chardonnay were sublime! It’s a good thing I don’t live here as I’d become a full blown wino! I must say though, the views across the valley are truly stunning! Sadly, the weather was against us for the duration of the time we were there, so we just HAD to stay in, sample more local wines, eat awesome food (thanks Rach) and chat utter bollocks for hours on end. To be honest, it was just what we needed, and really felt like home! Rach, it was awesome to catch up after so long of talking about it. It was great to finally meet Alex too, he’s alright I suppose 😉. 

So as you can see, our time in Melbourne was absolutely fuelled by friends. It was such a joy to see so many familiar faces. As ever Tim and Steph properly sorted us out and were outstanding hosts. We can’t thank you enough for your hospitality yet again! You guys really are legends and have become such a key part to so many memories on this year away. Also thanks for the extreme workouts in the gym, I think Kelly has only just stopped aching!

Steph, this is my new motto for fitness now!

Melbourne, you’re bloody awesome! I loved the chilled out vibe, the architecture, the food, the coffee, the beer, the teams, and definitely the culture. If the rest of Oz is like this the next few weeks are going to be a treat!

So now onto our next part of our trip, a drive up the coastal road to Sydney, all 1500km of it! Friends, say hello to BERTHA!!