Australia!

Sorry for the delay in writing, this time we have no excuse, except that our first week in Australia was a lot of boring admin which wouldn’t have been worth writing about. Oh yes, we’re in Australia! Very exciting, read on to pick up from where we left off...

So after our ‘adventures’ in Tonsai we had a stop over in Kuala Lumpur for two nights, the highlight probably being finding our suitcases where we left them. (Sophie thinks they were literally exactly where we left them, which was under the stairs in the reception/general meeting area of our hostel... for 6 weeks). Nothing of notice occurred in KL apart from a nice afternoon by the pool on our last day.

On Wednesday (with now only a moderately sore stomach) we got up early and headed to the airport for our flight to Australia! Only to find it was two hours delayed... Ah well, we had access to the AirAsia lounge, so we had unlimited diet cokes and a comfy seat at least!

Everything after that was relatively low drama and we arrived in Melbourne after the 8 hour flight at midnight. We decided to treat ourselves to a lie in and the next day went for a walk to St Kilda Pier before heading back to our AirBnB where we were due to meet Jaye and her 14 year old son Daniel. 

- View from St Kilda pier.

We’d met Jaye (a Melbourne native) in church on Christmas Day, when our minister Frank had got us up the front to light the last advent candle whilst also announcing we would be heading off soon. This prompted Jaye to swiftly grab me after the service and introduce herself and swap contact details. So on Thursday evening we met Jaye and Daniel for a brief tour of the city and a steak dinner! It was a lovely way to spend our first proper night in Australia and we made plans to stay at her house once we have finished at our AirBnB. 

The rest of our first week was largely spent doing admin, phone, bank, car, Medicare, AHPRA etc... It has all went relatively smoothly and as long as the car doesn’t break down everything will be fine! 

After our first week we moved from St Kilda to Hawthorn (to stay at Jaye’s), moving up in the world! In between the shopping for road trip supplies we did manage recreational activities. We hit two different climbing gyms to see what facilities we’d have on hand if we decided to live in Melbourne. The first was crowded and super hipster and the second was more old school, but mainly roped. It made us appreciate the great facilities we have at boulder world in Belfast.

We also got some culture and headed to the national gallery as when you go on holiday it’s compulsory to become an art critic... and it was free! 

- A room full of 5ft skulls. We love art, it speaks to us. 

The cultural highlight (as recommended by Jaye) was going to Shakespeare in the park, where we saw a rendition of Twelfth Night as performed by the Australian Shakespeare Company. It was a modern twist on the comedy and it was a nice way to spend the evening sitting in the botanical gardens with a bottle of wine and a picnic! We then followed this up the next evening with Movie’s by Moonlight watching Jumanji, less highbrow, but still good fun!

- Enjoying our picnic at Shakespeare in the park. 

We did head down to St Kilda pier for a beautiful sunset to see the penguins as they return home from a days fishing, however we only managed to spy one. The wildlife in Australia has not disappointed though, with sightings of a bushy tailed possum and big fruit bats on our first night alone. 

We spent our last few days picking up the last of our supplies and packing up our car to head off on our road trip! We’re planning on going as far north as Fraser Island over the course of a month and we’ll be doing some camping in our newly purchased tent from decathlon (which only opened in Australia in January)!

- All packed and ready to hit the road. 

On our last night in Melbourne, after two weeks in the city we went out for a farewell meal with Jaye and Daniel at a Korean BBQ restaurant, which was something new and delicious! It was great staying with a local family to give us a better sense of life in Melbourne and it was lovely getting to know Jaye and Daniel. We headed off early(ish), next stop, Wilson’s Promontory.

- Our lovely hosts. 

Nature Watch 

We saw 1 possum, 1 penguin (after a 90 minute wait), a swan (that kept us mildly entertained during said 90 minutes, three water rats (that got our penguin hopes up) hundreds of fruit bats/flying foxes... Nature Watch!

- (Trust me) Some bats. 

- A mildly entertaining swan.