Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne late in the evening and after the bus ride into the city met Chris’ friend Nick who is kindly letting us stay with him. Nick travelled South East Asia for a few months and has been working/living in Melbourne since Christmas. Nick was so kind to give us his room, we were greeted to a card and bottle of bubbly as an engagement gift. He helped us plan our day giving us hints and tips of what we should visit.

First stop was breakfast just round the corner from his apartment, which was so fancy, Chris had a banoffee porridge and I had a pastrami hash, it was so tasty, a perfect start to the day. Our stomachs are already getting used to the western diet but our waist lines are not. After breakfast we decided to do a walking tour to get a feel for the city, I really enjoy learning about places in this way. We were in a park and our guide told us that the council put plastic wrapping around some of the trees to stop the possums climbing them and destroying them, however, it’s clearly not that effective as above the wrapping was a sleeping possum. Also as we passed the old jail he told us about a famous prisoner, Ned Kelly, who just prior to getting hung said “such is life”, which has become one of the famous sayings over here in Australia. We also walked through some of the lovely lane ways around the city and then walked though Chinatown. The Chinatown here is the oldest Chinatown in the world, but only because the original buildings in San Francisco burnt down. One thing we have noticed is after the obsession of the weather in Australia, the next thing is they love to brag about things being the best or the tallest or the first in the southern hemisphere, and bearing in mind only 2% of the worlds population live in the southern hemisphere not really sure how impressive it really is lol.

After the walking tour we went to a great little coffee shop, here in Melbourne coffee is a serious business and to be fair we haven’t had a bad cup over here yet – it’s lovely and strong! Next we headed to Queen Victoria Market on one of the free inner city trams for some of the famous hot jam doughnuts, but unfortunately they were sold out by the time we got there and a lot of the stalls were closing up. We will try to get them next time.

It’s a bit colder in Melbourne than it was in Sydney, so I was really fancying some comfort food and found a cute little soup stall down one of the lanes. We then just wandered around the city until we meet Nick for the evening. Nick took us to a bar on the south bank and we had happy hour drinks, the boys had the local beer Furphy and I had a mulled wine, this Christmas in July thing is really awesome! We know a few other people that are working in Melbourne at the moment too and had arrange to meet up. Jordon wasn’t well, but Sam came along to meet us for a drink after work. It was great all catching up and sharing stories of our travels. After drinks we said goodbye to Sam and headed to Chinatown for dinner. Nick took us to a great place and the food was fantastic, a lot of the places offer a bring your own drinks service so we brought along the Prosecco Nick had got for us and toasted our engagement again. We then headed back to the apartment and stopped at Nick’s local along the way. The boys and a pint and I had a schooner which is a 3/4 pint, which is the perfect size for me as a pint is a little to big and a half is too small, I’m sounding like Goldilocks now!

The next morning we met with Nick at the University of Melbourne where he works and had a little tour around. It’s been dubbed the Hogwarts of Melbourne and you can see why, some of the original buildings are stunning. After some breakie we got an Uber to the airport where we are heading to Tasmania and staying with my friend Kath who I haven’t seen for 5 years!

I think it’s unfair to judge the Melbourne v Sydney comparison at such an early stage, we are back in Melbourne again after Tassy before heading to the Yarra Valley, so will let you know our full thoughts after the next visit.

Lisa & Chris xx