Hostel Life

It’s been the best of hostels and the worst of hostels the past few days in the South West. At the moment we are staying in a beautiful house in Augusta, with a garden, huge well stocked kitchen, very comfy living area and a lovely bedroom with actual furniture. It’s like staying in a self catering hotel rather than a hostel and if it weren’t for the fact that everything in Augusta closes at 6pm (and I mean everything including the video store and take away). I’d happily live here until we have to leave. We’ve voted it the Number One place we’ve stayed in so far. Which is good as we’ve just stayed in the charmingly named the Dolphin Retreat Hostel in Bunbury but officially ranked as the worse place we’ve been in (Mike disagrees and says Lakes Entrance was but it’s my blog so hey…). Features included dubious hygiene standards, a tiny kitchen and a few soul destroying permanent residents either occupied watching TV (to get to the kitchen or bathroom from our bedroom we had to walk through the living room so always had an audience when transporting toothbrushes and dishes to and fro) or making heart-attack dinners laden with grease, barbeque sauce and salt. The evening we arrived both had (separate) bizarre encounters in the showers –I startled a girl busily blow-drying her feet with a hairdryer, flip-flops still on, while Mike waited patiently for a guy to finish the longest shower in history, but although the water stopped, followed by a long pause it all started up again and the man never emerged. He never saw who it was, just had to give up. Now that I think of it the guys in the TV room probably thought that Mike was the odd fella going to the shower with all the gear then emerging 30 mins later still not cleaned! And don’t even get me started on the eighty year old man who took 25 mins in front of us to check in as he argued about the cost of a dorm bed. He was a member of YHA for 50 years so knew his stuff as you can imagine. Thankfully the place was brightened up by a medley of Asian backpackers who cheerfully invaded the kitchen emerging hours later with a selection of amazing dishes you’d be happy to eat in a restaurant. No mean feat considering I’d trouble baking a potato in a microwave that promptly shut itself off when it got too hot. Some things I won’t miss when I get home!

Some rules and regulations............

Go West!

After touching down briefly in Adelaide (slightly dull place, time mainly spent sleeping off another overnight Greyhound journey and getting badly beaten in pool) we arrived in Perth to start the last leg of the journey. I don’t have much to write as everything just creeps along at a nice pace here, neither terminally boring nor crazy exciting. Which makes the place sound like magnolia paint but that’s the wrong impression as it’s a very nice city and has lots to offer. Although now that I think of it we haven’t done a lot other than swim at the gorgeous Cottesloe beach, drink coffee, think about buying some souvenirs, parking that idea and drinking some more coffee. So pretty much what we do most places then except there’s a very nice feel to doing it in Perth. Oh one major thing happened, we got caught in a street fight out of the blue. Well maybe caught on the fringes rather than actually trading punches, but there were bottles flying, broken glass and police running down the street, just like an episode of The Bill. But apart from that, very quiet. Just in case we didn’t think Perth was easy going enough, we’re down in Fremantle for the weekend where the sun is out and everyone’s so laid back they’re not just horizontal but being pushed around asleep in bed. Exciting things planned for next week though involving dolphins, whales, wine and chocolate. What a lovely combination of lovely things!

Beach Aerobics

Myself and Mike started giving some aerobics classes to supplement our income while away. Please, feel free to join in while looking at some pictures of us inaction....

Melbourne

Find myself staying in an ex convent this week and am greeted by a clock on Bethlehem and Vatican time in the hallway with pictures of saints peering down solemnly from the walls. All I need is a Sacred Heart in the kitchen and I’d be right at home!
So a week after the Melbourne Cup and the Aussies haven’t stopped lording it over the beaten Europeans and the papers still pour scorn over the Irish for getting it so badly wrong. Let it go! If there’s one thing I’ve discovered about the Aussies this trip is that they like to be the best at everything. Not just at sport but EVERYTHING. Each town we’ve visited has boasted of having the biggest/tallest/greatest/widest (delete as necessary) something in the state/country/Southern Hemisphere/world. Nothing’s exempt: from pineapples to Shell Museums, everything can aspire to be the best or biggest something or another. And when it comes to Melbourne and Sydney, so long as they are better than the other it doesn’t matter about the rest of the world. The rivalry between these cities stems from long ago, to the point that as neither city could bear the honour of being Capital to go to the other, a random place halfway between them was chosen instead and so Canberra was built. The competition between the cities has persisted to this day. We overheard defeated Melbourne Victory fans discussing how they reckoned the Soccer League is rigged purely to enable Sydney to win. The funniest was a notice at the end of St Kilda Pier in Melbourne, describing the reconstruction of a coffee shop that had been burnt down in 2003. The council had a chance to rebuild “ a building as beautiful as the Opera House” but decided they already had something just as good as the Sydneysiders and just rebuilt the kiosk instead. Coffee shop versus Sydney Opera House…hmmmmm there’s a comparison not often made.
So Melbourne or Sydney, which is better? Melbourne is a cool place; more laid back than Sydney, easier to get about and Fitzroy where we’re staying has the funkiest selection of shops and bars. Sydney though, edges it for me, with that harbour and beaches and an indefinable touch of romance that captures my imagination in a way that Melbourne doesn’t. Needless to say Mike disagrees and prefers Melbourne so I guess if we were to move here we’d have to live in Canberra.

St Kilda's Pier Kiosk and the Opera House....go figure

Sunny Photos

Beaach in Eden just behind where we were staying

Lakes Entrance

Lakes Entrance

Random photos of nice things

Leaving footprints on 90 Mile Beach Lakes entrance

Pelican contemplating the water in Bateman's Bay

Cape Woolamai Philip Island

Sleepy Koala in Philip Island

Sydney photos

Lifeguard on Manly Beach, Sydney

Darling Harbour

Sculptures by the Sea

The Road to Nowhere

Myself, Mike, a Toyota Corolla and a few bottles of Merlot took to the road last week and have been exploring the Sapphire and Wilderness Coasts between Sydney and Melbourne. The scenery is stunning, very peaceful, backpacker-less (almost) and sporadically cold and wet. Brrrrrrr. The only small drawback is that Internet access costing less than a tank of petrol is a rarity, so this is going to be a short blog. So far we have:


§ swam with the French Rugby League Team in Wollongong,
§ pretended we were in Home and Away in Bateman’s Bay caravan park
§ failed to find a garden in Eden but went to the Whale Festival instead (still not too sure what it was all about but local radio assures us it was very well attended and the organisers are already planning the festivities for 2009)
§ heard an old dear called Dot Bruce somewhere on the outskirts of the Snowy River National Park, broadcasting everything from the London Philharmonic to Metallica with 30 secs silence between each track as she struggled to put on the next record
§ had bangers and mash washed down by pots of beer while losing money on the Melbourne Cup in Lakes Entrance
§ listened to John McCain conceding defeat while crossing the bridge into Phillip Island

Phew! Soon we’ll be in Melbourne where hopefully Aidan O’Brien will have left me a cheque for the money he owes me………