Arrival in Melbourne

Though we were sitting up for the whole night, the Night Train experience was far more pleasant than that in China when we didn’t opt for the sleeper. We arrived in Melbourne somewhat sleepy, but not so exhausted that we couldn’t enjoy the scenery.

As soon as we stepped out of Southern Cross Station, I felt like we were in Switzerland - Zurich or somewhere. Never before on our trip have we stepped straight out of the train station and into a tram. There was a distinctly European feel to this city already, despite the palm trees when we arrived in St Kilda!

We had arranged to stay with Chris’ school friend Dave and his fiance Iulia for our first few nights in Melbourne while we found the cheapest hostel in town or preferably a self catering apartment for our three weeks here. Dave and Iulia live in the cool suburb of St Kilda, the most popular place for backpackers to stay. It’s right on the beach and has heaps of direct trams to the city centre. When we first arrived, Dave was at work (another Deloitte-er!) and Iulia took us for a walk around the town and helped us plan our next few days.

A very despondent looking me
- it’s just so expensive to stay in hostels!

After a day of seeking out the cheapest hostel in town, we soon realised that our stay in Melbourne was going to be an expensive one. At $450 a week for a double room and not much less for two dorm beds, we came home despondent, wondering whether we’d have to cut our trip short. Dave and Iulia encouraged us to stay with them for the whole time in Melbourne and we just couldn’t believe their generosity. They knew we weren’t flying out until 20 February and still insisted we should use the pull out sofa in their living room for the duration of our stay. Chris immediately got to work on finding out their favourite food and cooked up an amazing Burrito feast on our second night as a thank you. So far, we’ve cooked some great meals at Dave and Iulia’s - it’s wonderful to have said goodbye to the Stag Chilli and have a proper kitchen to cook in again!

Chris’ burrito night

We’ve spent our first few days in Melbourne strolling around the city and visiting some of the free exhibitions. There is so much for tourists to do and we’ve drawn up a huge list of free tours we’d like to go on, exhibitions we’d like to see, activities and neighbourhood walks - we have no clue how to fit all of this is but we’ll have to make a detailed itinerary for each day!

The city council have made it extremely easy for tourists to get around - there’s a free oldy-worldy tram which comes every ten minutes to stops around the city at each of the places of interest for tourists - circling the city, it‘s highly practical for locals too. What a great service! Chris was beaming - he loves trains, trams and when cities come up with unique improvements. He was delighted to be on such a traditional tram that had been restored. Not only have the city provided this free tram service, there is a free bus too which reaches further tourist attractions - we’re all set up for a very interesting (and hopefully cheap!) few weeks in this wonderful city.

An exhibit at the ACMI

We’ve even found a wonderful place to sit where there’s free internet. In Federation Square, the council have provided free deck chairs along with lounging areas where people can come with a picnic and their laptops to make use of the free wifi - another excellent service for us. There is often live music on the bandstand too and on our first visit we listened to the police band playing some fab music such as ‘Sex is on Fire’ by the Kings of Leon - what a treat! The architecture is interesting and it’s home to a number of museums such as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) - again, with many completely free exhibits.

Federation Square, opened in 2002, is the size of an entire city block. A Fed square leaflet describes the architecture as ‘A perfect metaphor for ‘Federation’: many diverse elements connected by what they have in common’.

We absolutely LOVED it here at the Screen Worlds exhibition, learning about the history of the moving image from the very first cinema experiences to modern day video games. Incredibly interesting and interactive too. Definitely recommended.

Steph-Monster and Chris-Monster

There’s just so much to do in this city and we can’t wait to get started on it all!