Hi all. How are we? Hope you’re not too cold at home. They call Melbourne the city with 4 season in one day. You never quite know what you’re going to get. Seeing as we come from the country with 4 seasons each day you would think we’d be used to that sort of unpredictability. However some of us have been in the constant heat for over 2months and the other member of the group has flown half way around the world to escape it that sort of thing. So it’s been a bit of a shock really.

Still, there’s no point worrying about the weather. So where did we leave it last time? Ah yes. The night in the drug addicts play house. It was actually a super nice sleep. We had been upgraded to a family room, mainly because they couldn’t be bothered to move a z bed into our originally booked twin room. Which is nice. We had two separate rooms with an ensuite, a tv, a kettle, a microwave and not a used needle in sight. Although I’m sure they were probably there if we looked hard enough.

Hotels are not as nice as in Asia where you can check out at midday. Here it’s 10am sharp. So following a pretty severe scrubbing in the shower we headed off to what would be our very first dorm room hostel. With just the two of us it always worked out cheaper for us to get an entire room than two beds in a dorm. Now we have grown by 50% that luxury no longer applies.

When we first checked in we were greeted, or rather not, by the wicked witch of the west. Super miserable. Our room wasn’t ready but we sort of expected that as we were quite early. So we dropped off our bags, leaving the receptionist to pop out the back, where I imagine she could stir her cauldron with the skin of young children and goblin hair. Maybe. Just a guess.

We headed off to grab some coffee and something to eat before exploring the area of St Kilda. Our home for the next two nights. It’s a pretty nice place. Beach, pier, coffee shops galore. Lovely. But what we really needed today was to do a little shopping. And when we say shopping we mean the cheapest possible shopping. Slave children produced type shopping. From our time in Perth we found the place to grab this high quality produce was from the store K-Mart.

Unfortunately K-Mart was not that easy to find. Probably because it’s verging on illegal how cheap the stuff is in there. I grabbed a pair of $2 thongs while Soph got a couple of tops and Courtney took the store’s entire stock into the changing room with her. In case you’re wondering, thongs are the Australian word for flip flops. I may have spent a month in Thailand but the place didn’t have that much of an effect on me.

After Courtney managed to narrow her original selection of 2,341 items down to 4, we headed back on the long tram journey to the hostel. Where hopefully the witch had waved her wand around enough to have got our beds ready for us. And thankfully she had. We got our card keys and headed up to pick a bed in what we knew would be an already pretty busy dorm room. We managed to pick 3 top bunk beds close to each other before going off to explore the place. Which didn’t take too long. Turned out the entire place had about 3 bathrooms between 100 people. And one of those showers was not only windowless, but also lightless. And seeing as none of us, to our knowledge, are related to a badger, we wouldn’t have seen a thing in there. Soph and I have seen some pretty nasty places, but for Courtney, the sight of a lonesome toe nail making itself at home beside one of the only sinks in the place was almost enough to push her over the edge.

We headed out and grabbed ourselves some pizza from one  of the restaurants near the hostel. As always my head was saying small while my stomach was screaming at me to go large. Which I did. Once again my head was left shaking at itself when after two slices I was searching around for a takeaway box. The girls were very happy with their salad. To share. Boring. Even though the world and his kangaroo were seemingly out to celebrate the evening before Australia Day, we headed back to our room to make sure we were first in line for the showers.

Once we’d plucked up the courage to grab a shower, we got all our things together and went in search for one with at least a light. We made our way to the very top floor where we found an almost luxury styled shower. Sure it didn’t have what we’d originally decided was a priority, I light, but it was hidden away from everyone else and had hot water. So after some pretty meticulous planning, the girls jumped in the shower together. One with a torch and a blindfold, the other with some shampoo and conditioner. I of course was more than gentlemanly enough to avoid the temptation to set up a hidden camera for the event, and stood outside as the night watchman.

A couple of pretty awkward nods to passers by wondering what the girly chuckles coming from the bathroom were later, and it was my turn. Of course I had nobody willing enough to hold a torch for me. And asking another bloke to do it for me didn’t seem to hold the same appeal as it did for the two girls. So I struggled through a pitch black shower attempting to keep the light on Soph’s phone from landing in the shower with me. Fair to say I probably didn’t get everything super clean. But I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know the priorities were well looked after.

Then came the further awkward moment of whether or not it would be ok to turn the lights out or not. There was one other person in the room but he was right at the back, busy with his laptop. We weren’t even sure if the fella was even English so we waited until he got up and left the room. We then plunged the room into darkness the second he shut the door. We then climbed up on to our top bunks and attempted to grab some sleep. Only for some other foreign man to come strolling in, leaving the door wide open. We guessed that perhaps he was only coming in to grab something quick before leaving again. But as he left he didn’t even make an attempt to shut the door behind him.

We all looked at each other. But said nothing. A minute or so later he reappeared, again leaving the door open. Courtney had had enough. She jumped down ferociously off her bed and marched towards the door, slamming it shut and forcing the room into darkness again. Although Soph and I couldn’t now see each other, we were 100% looking in each other’s direction with an expression of “NO SHE DIDN’T!” on our faces. Turned out the foreign guy, who was clearly raised in a barn, had the same facial expression. He instantly walked over to the door and without saying a thing, reopened it. He turned, faced Courtney, and slowly, as if auditioning to be the next Terminator, told her he was trying to pack and so needed the light for just another 5 minutes.

Fair to say that was the end of that. Well and truely put in our place. Glad it wasn’t me that got up and closed the door. Phew!

Somehow that night I slept like a baby on a bed of Chloroform. The girls however were up and down like a twitchy kangaroo, barely getting a wink of sleep between them. In the end Courtney seemed to give up hope on getting any sleep and got up and ready before I’d even opened my eyes. Which is obviously good as it meant I would only have to wait around for one girl to get ready rather than two. It’s a tough life being a boy around girls. Nobody considers the amount of waiting around we have to do. It almost makes you want to get up and wash properly yourself while you’re waiting. Almost.

A new day. AUSTRALIA DAY! The celebration of when good old Caption Cook accidentally discovered Australia when chasing a crocodile that had swallowed his hand while simultaneously battling a pesky kid called Peter who never seemed to grow up. Or was that not the same guy? I don’t know. Whoever it was is not really the point. It’s the celebration of Australia being named Australia and they conduct such celebrations through the use of alcohol. Obviously.

Due to the hostel also having no WiFi we had to go out and find some before we could get involved in the celebrations. Thankfully we found it pretty easily and had a very productive session of booking further hostels and finding out where the main firework show would be for that night. We then went for a little walk to see what was going on around the city centre. We came across a little skate park that was hosting a trick completion. And with 250 bucks on the table for the best trick, there was some pretty stiff competition. We watched for a little while with our barbecued sausage in a bun before moving on.

The weather was again all over the place. Layering up and then delaying seconds later was beginning to get annoying, when the Sun seemed to finally come out for good. We chilled out on some bean bags in a park with a drink and listened to some live music. It seems nobody out here seems to understand the concept of a larger shandy. When I asked the guy at the pop up bar for a lemonade, a beer and a two plastic glasses, he responded with “Gee mate, you gonna have some sorta mix up? A cheeky British cocktail maybe?”.
A cheeky cocktail indeed. Us Brits must seem like such daredevils with our lemonade and larger in the same glass combo. What crazy cats we are.

The evening’s entertainment was over by the Docklands where a huge firework display was due to take place. Just by the Docklands is the rather large Aussie rules footy stadium named the Etihad Stadium. If you didn’t know, this also happens to be the name of Manchester City’s football stadium. And if it wasn’t for the cartoon like accent coming out of everyone’s mouth we could just as well have been in Manchester. It was cold and grey as we waited for the display to commence. But it was well worth the wait. It was a super display which probably cost the Melbourne tax payer their life savings. A proper good show.

The tram back to the hostel was jam packed. But we managed to get back and into our room for another night of awkward happenings. The most notable came when Soph and Courtney went for the shower. Same routine as the night before, just this time they were so excited they forgot to lock the door. Who forgets to lock the door? In a strange place where tons of random people are crawling about, I would be making sure that door was barricaded shut. I’d have been hammering planks of wood to the door if it was me. Piling chairs in front to make sure not even the Incredible Hulk was getting through. The girls however, forgot. So some unsuspecting lady got a full on glimpse of Courtney in the  shower before getting beaten over the head with the bathroom door when Soph’s immediate reaction was to shut it in her face. Brilliant entertainment.

So another night was spent sleeping in a small room with 13 other people all with absolutely no intention of interacting with each other. Just the way I like it. Again I will leave it there for now and update you again when we can. But just like in a tv show, Next Time On Backpacking Live…we are staying in a new hostel, in a room with 4 beds. The only other  person in the room is a German guy who seemingly stores his collection of fine cheeses in his trainers. It could be another long night.

Thanks for following x