There are odd things in Melbourne today – heart shapes have appeared in lots of shop windows and there appear to be lots of men rushing around with flowers in their hands.

Maybe it’s some special Australian thing. Either way I’m not needing to do any of that, which is… er… good? Sort of? Maybe? No? Shoot.

Anyway, Happy Valentines Day to you (but only in a platonic way, naturally *). Hope you’re having a nice one. :-)

I’m not having a bad one to be honest, despite feeling a little tired through a few bevvies last night with Jen, Kate and Welshy (none of whom I’d seen since New Zealand) – as I’m looking forward to more of a catch up this evening, which’ll be ace.

Melbourne’s as it usually is, although with less flies – which is a big plus. I’m just here for a week or so to plan and book the next month or so of my Big Adventure (got my eye on a 10 day 4×4 tour of the outback from Adelaide to Alice Springs, for a start), then I’m off out on the Great Ocean Road (more hire car action here we come!) over to the Grampians and Adelaide.

I’m feeling pretty damned chilled out – apart from for about 30 minutes two days ago where I thought I’d lost my wallet in the library (turns out I’d left it in the locker in my hostel room), which was quite scary!

I’m staying in the Greenhouse Backpackers (which I’d previously recommended on this ‘ere blog, I seem to recall). It’s bloody good. Nice rooms, huge TV lounge, good kitchen, a “free food” shelf, free breakfast, weekly free BBQ (including veggie burgers!!!), free pancakes on Sunday… and slap bang in the middle of town. Winner!

Twas sad to say bye to Jersey on Saturday (as he went to Sydney from Tassie – he’s on a tour of Alice Springs etc as I type), as we’d been travelling together for 3 weeks and twas very odd thinking that I won’t see him again on my travels. We’re of course planning on a cross-English Channel meetup later in the year, mind!

I don’t feel as though I’m on my own here in Melbourne, as Chris, Welshy, Kate and Jen are all here (albeit in different hostels/appartments). Should be interesting on my solo trip to Adelaide… in many ways I’m looking forward to the freedom of “travelling fully independantly” (almost always been with other folk so far). Let’s just hope it’s not too lonely.

Anyways, back to planning stuff – and perhaps grabbing some food and a nice smoothy (yep, I’ve become addicted to them – which is better than being addicted to pizza I guess! Mmm. Pizza… ah, crap. :-) )

Take care and Happy 14th of February!

Toodles,

Pat

* Unless you’re Elisha Cuthbert in which case please consider the phrase “Happy Valentines Day” as my way to say I want to [CENSORED BY THE UNIVERSE] night long. Thanks.

G’Day!

Yep, that’s correct, I’ve finally made it down to the land (ok, so it’s technically an Australian territory) of Tasmania!

Last week was a ROAD TRIP (featuring a whole load of driving about and viewing of some lovely coastal sights between Sydney and Melbourne – via a detour into the amazing Blue Mountains), which was great fun but blooming tiring for both of us (Jersey and I sharing the driving all the way down), so getting here in the laid back Tasmanian city of Hobart has been just the ticket.

It’s a really pretty city, with lots of colourful 19th century buildings, hilly streets, lovely cafes, lovely green parks and an excellent Saturday market. Perfect for winding down in, frankly.

Excitingly, one of the local radio stations (“Triple J”) not only plays quite a good selection of music, but it played a song with the words “F**k”, “S**t” and “M***er F***er” uncensored at 10:25am yesterday. Don’t worry though, they played a jingle saying “This song contains strong language” beforehand. If only I’d known! I would’ve played Kevin Bloody Wilson every hour on my previous radio shows…

Anyway, I’ve not done much in Taz yet – however we’re going to be scaling the rather (1270m) high Mount Wellington tomorrow, then over to such places as Port Arthur, Freycinet National Park and Launceston later in the week. So that should be good.

We’re still umming and ahhing regarding whether to hire a car or take coach journeys to our destinations, but I suspect we’ll opt for the latter as – with insurance and fuel considered – coaches are cheaper. We just need to compromise a bit around the timetables.

Anyways, the blog mentioned a while ago is still on its way, which will cover everything from Australia Day until the day it’s written. For ease I’m-I mean, er, Squage’s- going to split it into three blogs: Before The Road Trip, ROAD TRIP and Tasmania. It’s going to be rather bullet-pointy due to the detailed blog attempts – once viewed on screen – starting to look like aimless rambles.

A little like this. So I’ll stop.

Speak to you soon, take care and keep checking for photos in the usual place!

Toodles,

Pat
—
Starting to get a cold for the first time in Oz. Probably cos southern Tasmania’s about as hot as southern England on a summer’s day. Quite a temperature drop from Mel-38C-bourne…

They’re almost non-existant. The ones that do exist suck a bit.

Therefore the bloggage promised by my little blue friend is, whilst still on its way, going to be postponed by a few days. Needless to say that things are going well, Jersey and I are ROAD TRIP-ping it to the max and we’re seeing lots of lovely sights.

I’ve managed to throw some piccies of the sights from the past few days on the net – check them out at The Usual Place™ (although currently without any names or descriptions…).

Take care folks and I’ll speak to you soon!

Toodles,

Pat

So that was Melbourne.

Few things about it:

Good

• Public transport: I suspect the Melbourne/Victoria Government once followed the Tony Blair “Education, education, eduction” approach… but with trams. There are loads of trams in Melbourne, taking you to all the areas you need – and – they’re pretty easy to get around on. What’s better is that they’re air conditioned too. Oh and they’re TRAMS! Come on, don’t tell me the idea of going around on trams doesn’t excite you a bit? Just a little? No? Just me? Ah.
• People: Friendly, easy going folk. There’s a wide range of cultures too – a fair few Chinese and Japanese residents, alongside a great deal of travelers. In fact, there’s probably more non-Australians in and around the CBD during the day than there are Australians. Still, everyone seems pretty chilled and, on the whole, pretty happy. It’s a nice city to visit and a great city to work in, I’d say.
• Weather: Well, on the whole. It’s nice and hot, sunny and with just enough wind to stop it being too horrendous. Only the fact that it can be a bit sticky occasionally detracts from the otherwise ace nature of the weather. Oh and also that it chucked it down on Christmas day. And that it attracts loads of bloody flies. In fact, I guess the weather’s not all good. Just ignore this point.
• Sights: From the singing bridge, through the MCG and to the lovely parks around the CBD (Central Business District), there are lots of nice places to see on your travels around Melbourne.
• Lord of the Fries: The best chip shop in the world, mainly because of the awesome sauces on offer and the quantity of chips you get. Sitting at the bottom of Elizabeth Street, just opposite Flinders Street station, it’s a must if you’re out and about on the town late at night. This was one of the contributing factors to me not losing weight in Melbourne.
• Smoothie shops: There are a LOT of smoothie shops in Melbourne. These are all great because a) they’re quite good value, b) the smoothies taste looovely and c) you can convince yourself (pretty legitimately for a change) that you’re being healthy by drinking stuff that tastes bloody good.
• Internet cafes: Aside from the crap hostel ones these are generally fast, good value and allow you to download such things as Paint Shop Pro and Limewire (not that, er, I used Limewire at all. Because that would be bad. Yes.) without breaking a sweat (aside from emotional sweat through the fear of being caught illegally downloading music. Which I didn’t do. No. So that was fine. Yes.)
• Socialising: Not so much in the CBD, but places like Fitzroy are chockablock with pretty, good value cafes and bars, always bustling with people and a great place to hang out / grab some food / have a night out.
• New Year Celebrations: Huuge fireworks display, loads and loads of cheery revelers out and about and a really great feeling of fun throughout the city. They know how to celebrate New Year in Melbourne.

Bad

• Internet cafes: Through being good and allowing lots of things to be done, these ended up causing several hours on certain days being totally wasted. These hours could’ve been better spent in a pub. Actually, maybe that was a good thing…
• Flies: FUCKING flies. Everywhere you go, they’re there. And they don’t leave you alone. For some reason, a long time ago I had the romantic notion that flies had a “home”. A territory, if you like. But no. They follow you for MILES. And sorry, but what is the POINT in them anyway? They buzz around you, sit on you and then fly off. GAAAAH!
• TV: Advert-ridden, US sitcom filled tosh. Honestly, it’s worse than the US telly I’ve seen. The adverts seem to be every 5 minutes and it’s the same damned ads every break. My particular “favourites” were the Optus ad – which featured lots of animals in the outback “singing” (hooray for computer generated mouth movement) Give Me The Simple Life for about 30 seconds – and one for a bargain warehouse place – which involved an Aussie bloke SHOUTING ABOUT ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU CAN BUY FOR A REDUCED-YES A REDUCED PRICE at 200kmph for 30 seconds. It felt akin to having your head beaten in by a lump hammer for half a minute.
• Christmas Celebrations: I’m guessing Christmas celebrations in Melbourne happen at home and not out in the bars and clubs, because the most Christmassy thing I heard all night in the pubs was a Christmas Mix of “Put Your Hands Up For Detroit”. By “Christmas Mix”, I mean a version of the song with the DJ mumbling something about it being Christmas day over the start. Ho ho bloody ho!
• Flies: Did I mention these were annoying?

Ugly

• Not many: There are a LOT of attractive people in Melbourne.

Ooh yeah, and about the hostels…

• Freeman Lodge: Really nice – the owner’s really friendly, the rooms are comfy and the kitchen, whilst small, has all you could ask for. It’s rather quiet, mind, and a bit of a walk from town, so Chris and I moved to the hostel “Hotel BakPak” after a couple of weeks to mingle a bit more with other travelers.
• Hotel BakPak (or Hotel Discovery as I think they’re renaming themselves (each day I was there they seemed to replace another BakPak sign/poster with a Hotel Discovery one… but without anyone actually mentioning anything)): Not so good. Despite the cheapness of rooms it’s a bit basic, feels run down, the kitchen is fully crap and the place is so understaffed that you have to wait bloody ages to check in/out, find info, book anything, get a replacement room card (you tend to need to at least every day or so as they inexplicably decide to stop working rather often)… or get a drink in their bar. Oh, AND you have to hand in your passport/drivers’ license in order to get your room access card. Secure! Ok, so maybe I’m being harsh – after all it’s situated at the top of the CBD and the place does have a rooftop garden, which is awesome to chill out in – but frankly I’d rather stay somewhere that felt a bit friendlier and well run.
• Greenhouse Backpackers: Slap bang in the CBD, it’s recommended by all who go there. I didn’t go there. Why’m I personally recommending this then? Because they made me feel Christmassy on Christmas day (yep, this was the TV Lounge I watched Only Fools and Horses in). That’s enough for me :-)

Anyway, enough waffling… I’m off to the Museum of Sydney with Jersey!

Toodles,

Pat

Yep, two months ago at around about this time, I was just getting up at some ungodly hour, looking at my packed rucksack and thinking “Oh God, what AM I doing?”

I wasn’t sure whether this trip was going to be the best thing or the most stupid thing I’ve ever done.

Turns out that, so far, it’s almost certainly the best.

I’ve seen so many things I never really thought I would, I’ve done things I would NEVER have imagined doing (I know, who’d’ve thought I’d get on a bus at 7am?!?! Oh, and some bungy thing…) – and even now am amazed I did – and I’ve met so many ace people, some of whom have become good friends who I hope to keep in touch with for many years to come.

Sure, there’ve been times where I’ve been feeling a bit down, but that’s to be expected when you’re the other side of the world, sometimes wondering what the hell you’re doing.

On the whole though I’ve felt really great out here. My stress levels are way down, I’m feeling positive about life and like I have the world at my feet regarding what I want to do after I come back (hopefully that’ll not change when I return to the UK broke)!

I’ve learned quite a bit about myself and have also realised that getting to the other side of the world and travelling around is actually pretty easy (provided you’ve got the funds). People are so friendly in both NZ and Oz and there are so many other people travelling that you end up finding it hard to stay on your own for any period of time.

I’m really looking forward to seeing more of the Real Australia™ over the next few months too as I wander further north and to such places as Alice Springs/Uluru. First though is the next stage of my trip:

On Wednesday I’m saying a tearful, waving-hanky-from-the-side-of-the-train(well, tram) goodbye to Chris and heading to Phillip Island, to see such things as lots of cute penguins (hopefully visible to the camera this time, unlike NZ’s Curio Bay…), Seals, awesome beaches and to do some walking + cycling. Then on Saturday I’m off to Sydney, where I’ll be staying for a couple of weeks, meeting up with Jersey (from the Kiwi Experience kru) and if all goes well heading to Tazmania for a week or so.

It’s all booked (well, up to Sydney anyway), which is nice, so I can spend the next few days sunbathing.

Sorry, did I not mention it’s lovely and hot out here? :-)

Right, better dash… got some sunbathing to do (it’s hot here, by the way).

Take care peeps,

Pat

G’day folks!

Hope you’re well, had a lovely Christmas and are currently enjoying the (hopefully) nice and chilled week up until New Year’s Eve.

Just thought I’d do a quick (compared to some of Squage’s “War And Peace” efforts) blog to fill you in on how Christmas in Melbourne was.

Christmas Eve
This mainly consisted of wandering around department stores during the day (just to see somewhere that actually had Christmas decorations up if nothing else), then going out drinking in the evening. We met up with Matt from earlier in the New Zealand trip, along with his girlfriend and her mate (both called Katie, which helped my lame memory), so including Chris and myself we were 6 strong, which was quite cool.

Matt, Katie and other Katie are all from Essex, which was cool – if a little odd, in that it almost felt like being back in Essex occasionally, what with chatting about such things as the Essex Chronicle, the Blackwater and pubs in Woodham and Maldon…

Most of the pubs were filled with British folk (most of the Aussies at their local pubs rather than expensive, pomme-filled city places I suspect), which was odd and it seemed that none of the pubs wanted to admit it was Christmas, playing generic dance/chart tunes all night.

We saw Christmas Day in with “Put Your Hands Up For Detroit”. How festive.

It wasn’t a crap night, it just didn’t feel like Christmas.

Christmas Day
After waking up too early (i.e. pre-12pm), Chris and I met up with Matt et al and headed to St Kilda for our Christmas meal at a local greasy spoon luxurious restaurant.

In the restaurant we met up with some of Matt’s travelling mates/mates from home, which was cool so there was a good crowd of us.

Christmas Lunch itself was, well, interesting. The serving staff were somewhat confused and the meal rather, er, odd. I guess they don’t normally need glasses with wine – or open wine bottles – or champagne of one colour – or christmas pudding portions bigger than one mouthful – or white wine that doesn’t taste like cream soda – or… I could go on.

To be honest, I’m not moaning as from the very beginning, on seeing that we were going to be having our Christmas Lunch in what was essentially a seaside cafe, we started laughing. Much of the meal was spent with tears in my eyes through finding it all a bit too amusing – and I wasn’t the only one.

So a great time had on the whole, even if it was a bit ridiculous. Ian (Matt’s Irish mate) even took to “welding” the crap cracker toys together to make weird looking sculptures that’d not look out of place in the Tate Modern. As I say: a bit ridiculous.

We didn’t make it to the beach, sadly. This was mainly due to it being a) cold, b) cloudy and c) frequently rainy. Apparently it’s been the coldest Christmas in Melbourne for a loooong time.

You can take the Englishman away from the weather…

In the evening we scuttered around some (non-festive) bars, then eventually onto a hostel lounge in the city centre, which had a huge telly and plenty of cosy chairs.

I spent the last part of the evening watching Only Fools and Horses, drinking Bud from a bottle and eating crisps and nuts.

Now that’s what Christmas is all about :-)

Oh and on Boxing Day?
Chris and I met up with Neil from work and his travelling mates Roy and Louis – and spent the afternoon and evening pubbing it up. Another good, if slightly tipsy, day.

Anyways, we’re about to go to the cinema to watch that Arag-Dara-irog-eargo-… That Dragon Film, so I’ll speak to you later. Check out the photos of Christmas if you’re bored!

Have an awesome New Year if I don’t speak to you before then!

Pat

P.S. Due to a plethora of spam comments, which continue to bombard the blog (even though if WordPress’s security is functioning correctly, they shouldn’t be able to), if you post a comment it won’t appear until I’ve approved it. Sorry peeps…

P.P.S. Due to net issues thanks to the nasty earthquake t’other day I couldn’t get through to squage.com to post this yesterday. So I’ve seen Eragon now. It’s a bit rubbish, I’m afraid. Great special effects, not bad acting but the script just felt rushed… no time to get to know characters, lots of rather quick learning, lots of convenient twists… boo. I’m at the Melbourne Museum at the mo and Chris and I are about to watch Night At The Museum (appropriate, non?) at the IMAX. Can’t wait :-)

Otherwise I’d NEVER have jumped from a plane.

(Not George) Bush saves skydiver as parachute fails

And where did it happen? Bloody Taupo of all places! The place I did a Sky Dive.

Hooray for bushes, eh?

Pat

P.S. Squage is writing a big blog entry to fill you in on the last week in New Zealand, but today nothing’s getting written as I’m hungover and tired and… er… that’s affecting Squage for some reason. Yes.

Strewth, ya flaming galores, I’ve pulled me hammie, throw a shrimp on the barbie, Bruce, Sheila, Rolf Harris, Didgeridoo and other such Australian stereotypes.

I’m here!

After a few chilled out days in Christchurch (including a trip on the TranzAlpine train to Arthur’s Pass – photos to follow) I thought it’d be a great idea to have a few beers last night – after all, twas the last time I was going to be seeing Mette, Kate, Jen, Jersey, Welshy, Cat, Anne and Ian for some time so it’d be rude not to.

Sadly it meant that I got in a bit drunk at 12:15am.

Then got up at 4:00am to get into Christchurch airport for my 6:15am flight.

This morning was quite, er, delicate. Still, both myself and Chris (who’d decided going to bed was a crap idea and just stayed up all night) made it onto the plane… and after lots of dozing on the plane – and a 4 hour sleep in the lovely hostel (Freeman Lodge) over in the Richmond part of Melbourne – we’re now alive again!

At first glance Melbourne seems ace. Big, bustling, diverse city with loads of things to see / do / eat / drink (although there might not be much of that going on today)… a good place to stay for a couple of weeks, methinks.

Which is lucky, as that’s what I’m going to do.

Hopefully tomorrow or the day after Squage’ll get his ass in gear and fill you in on the last week in New Zealand…

Till then, no worries.

Pat

…and now there’s a TORNADO in LONDON?

What the hell is going on in the UK since I’ve left?

Next thing you know, Essex is going to have a reputation of being a calm, quiet, peaceful county full of innocent catholic girls and boys.

Actually, there’ll probably be a volcanic eruption in Coventry before that happens… ;-)

Pat
—
Shocked

# Let’s do a bungy,
# Throw myself off a ledge,
# Plummet down a valley!

Yep. After several hours of mild panic and a moment of “I can’t do this” whilst just walking onto the bungy bridge, I got the courage and finally went for it…

There was definitely something almost numbing about standing with the front of my feet over the edge of the tiny little ledge on the bridge, legs tied together at their base, staring at the water 43 metres below and knowing that I was about to lean forward and throw myself towards the river, accelerating at 9.8 metres per second.

I even managed a wave to the crowd and a nervous thumbs up to the camera:

(There’ll be better versions of these photos available shortly, as the AJ Hackett Bungy folk put them online within 48 hours but I couldn’t wait that long, hence the crap photo-of-a-photo jobby you’ve got here)

Straight after that, the dude who had secured my bungy chord counted down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” – and by the “3” I was already ducking over the edge.

Wasn’t the world’s most gracious of jumps, but I tell you what – it felt UTTERLY AMAZING:

The feeling of acceleration was like nothing else, and watching the river flying towards me was the most mental thing ever – I *just* remembered to get my arms ahead of me in a diving position before my “head and shoulder dunk” in the water… which was actually more akin to “everything except my shoes dunk”.

After flying out of the river again (which was SO refreshing) I was sprung up to well over half the height of the bridge – and for a moment I thought I was going to come crashing onto some rocks (I suspect my head was facing some crazy direction but it was hard to tell) so a little bit of flailing arms occurred, before I safely zoomed back down to just above the river.

From then it was just a few bobs before I grabbed onto the post-bungy-untying dinghy’s support pole thing and fell into the dinghy, completely elated and completely exhausted.

Probably the most intense feeling, even beating Sky Diving probably because of the ground rush and crazy feeling of being tugged around by the rope. In other words, Sky Dive was a case of “Oh shit…oh shit… WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH” whereas Bungy was more “Oh shit… oh shit… here goes… HOLY CRAP, WOOOAAAHHHH JEEZ, YEAAAARHRRRRGH, WOOOOOOOOOH, BLOOOODY HEEELLLLL, WOOAAAH”. Hopefully that clears things up.

Anyway, woot, that was amazing. I’m SO scared of heights but I’d do it again.

I just might have a rest first.

And a few beers. It is my birthday after all :-)

Toodles peeps!

Pat