What? We have to go? Now?

(Sunset at Gnarabup Beach, South Australia, 1st February 2008)

Margaret River is about 12km inland from where our hostel was, and we check out the town as we drive through. We follow signs for Prevelly Beach, which then leads on to Gnarabup Beach. Surfpoint Resort Hostel is just the other side of the road from the beach so we check in, drop our bags, and walk over to the beach. The room is large, en-suite and has a TV, and the hostel seems clean and well organized. As we get to the car-park, there is a bunch of work mates, all in uniforms. Nothing unusual there, except they are all soaking wet. There might have been some checking of contracts that evening, I reckon.

A quick walk back to the hostel, a change into swimming gear and a short drive to a headland past Prevelly also called ‘Surfpoint’ where we watch windsurfers and kitesurfers do their thing in, and there really is no other word for this, the shimmering sea. A little further down the coast is another beach better suited to surfers, and on the way back we find a café and have some coffee. The houses all around here are outstanding pieces of architecture, the most impressive being a modern cliff-top place with a long cantilever roof covered in zinc. We discuss it’s value, as we sneak up the private road and have a quick look at the outside, and guess at about GB£3m, or A$6m.

Back to the first beach we park, drop our towels and run into the water. It’s gorgeous. Half an hour of drying out on the beach and it’s 8.00pm by the time we get back to the hostel, shower, and head out to eat. In the town we find a vegetarian place that’s still open, have some fantastic food, and have a nose around a couple of the real estate shops on the way back to the car. In one, there are a few pictures of a modern house overlooking Prevelly Beach, with a long cantilever roof covered in zinc. It’s priced at A$3m, or about £1.8m, and almost seems cheap.

It’s the 1st of February, and we only have 7 days of our Australian adventure left. As clichés go, ‘It’s all flown by’ is pretty apt right now. We sit and have brekky at the hostel after Chelle has been out for a long run along the cliff road, and decide we have to make sure that these last 7 days count.

The first plan today is a visit to a winery. Now, we know very little about wine. We know that we like white, dry, and not chardonnay, or some light reds. In fact, we drink a lot of rose at home, because it saves the choice. That’s how much we know about wine. So, these wineries, of which there are thousands, are quite intimidating to me, but Chelle picks one, based purely on the fact that she likes the name, Xanadu. I like the name as well because it reminds me of Olivia Newton-John in her prime, and we drive up the long private road following the expensive looking signage.

The building looks expensive too, like one of those barn conversions, and we go in. We are the only people in there. We look around the displays, not sure of what we are looking at but nodding and pointing anyway. The girl behind the counter clearly knows that we know nothing, but she plays along too and offers us a taste of our choice. Chelle chooses a rose, tries it and likes it, so we buy a bottle, because it will be Chelle’s birthday soon. And we buy a bottle cooler, because we’re in Australia, after all.

I visibly relax as we drive away, mainly because we seem to have got away with visiting a winery, but also because the next stop is my choice, and it’s a micro-brewery. And I know a little bit about beer – well more than I know about wine anyway - having spent so long hanging around with Shane and James. Come to think of it, it’s surprising we don’t actually know more about wine, because we hang around with Hannah a lot too…

A recommendation from Jot Nick, the Colonial Brewery is a little out of town, but worth the drive because it brews 5 different beers, from a pilsner in the German style to a stout in the style of you-know-who.

Chelle settled for the Pilsner, and I tried the Golden Beer, and we ordered a bowl of fries to go with them. The beers were excellent, as were the fries, and we headed back to the beaches in good spirits. We headed south this time, stopping at a number of small and empty but beautiful bays, one of which had two horses standing around on the sand, before settling for one and doing the running into the sea thing again. It seemed even hotter than yesterday, so we headed back to the hostel before we got too crispy around the edges.

The pool was inviting when we got back, and another hour or so was eaten up with a dip, a sit, a dip then a sit, until we decided it was time to eat. We wanted to go back to the place we’d had coffee at the previous night, called the Sea Garden Café, and try the pizzas. We were glad we did. The huge pizza was covered in pumpkin, garlic and spinach, and lasted no longer than the small beers we guzzled on.

We headed back to Gnarabup Beach and watched the sun set. It was beautiful.

The relentless programme continued the next morning. Brekky and packing were followed by the drive into Margaret River, enlivened by the addition to the passenger list in the car of 2 ladies. They had been standing by the road near the hostel when we stopped to take a few pictures of the outside. After a quick chat we offered them a lift into town, and they climbed in the back.

Of later years, it turned out they had just met too, both waiting for a non-existent bus to take them. One was German, and said very little, we assumed that she spoke very little English, and our German is not as good as it ought to be, and the other was English, but had lived in Australia for ages, working with Aborigines and lately in Thailand teaching English. She was off to a days worth of learning Circus Skills. We couldn’t figure out what the other lady was up to, but we dropped them off in Margaret River and they seemed happy.

We turned north and headed back towards Fremantle, where we had an apartment booked for five days. Neither of us could hide our excitement at having a place to ourselves for 5 whole days, and we rather rushed our now traditional lunchtime picnic, on San Remo beach, so we could get there a bit quicker.

After a 3 hour journey we picked up the keys from the Information centre, figured out how to open the car park gate and dragged our bags up to the 5th floor of a decidedly 70’s looking tower block slap bang in the middle of Fremantle. Despite the block looking very Coronation Street, the flat itself looked like an advert for Ikea. Very white, wood and black, a brand new kitchen/living room, a bedroom and a bathroom, this was an unspeakable luxury, and we embraced it with gusto. Being a short-term let it is very soulless, but we soon spread our stuff out and start to make it look a bit lived in.

After unpacking (wahoo!), real coffee (yeah!), and our own shower (double wahoo!), we called Jot Nick and Kylie, got directions, and 30 minutes later pulled up in front of their house. And what a house. I’d seen various pictures of the place over the last few years as they had remodelled, but they hadn’t given me a clue as to how big the place is. Nick was worried about how I was going to describe the place on this blog, having read some of my previous descriptions, but they have nothing to worry about. It is homely, comfortable, and lived in – in stark contrast to the clinical apartment we have just left in Fremantle. The only things missing are their three children Amber, Max and Ellie, who are all at Grandma’s for the night. We get to meet them tomorrow.

We get the tour, which takes longer than most house tours thanks to both the number of rooms and the fact that this was our first meeting with Kylie, and we kept chatting about anything other than the facts about this room or that room. Beers appeared, pizza was ordered and quickly devoured, and Chelle, designated driver for the night, drives us ten minutes down the road to their friend Cameron’s house, the venue for tonight’s party. We meet people, learn names, forget names, drink beers, chat, and by midnight there is a hardcore of 8 or 10 people sitting around on the grass in the garden. It’s a lovely warm night, and suddenly guitars begin appearing, worryingly attached to very drunk blokes.

Chelle, being very sober, is well aware of what’s coming, having sat through it in the UK a number of times, but Nick surprises her by being the first to play, and playing not only original songs, but playing them very well. Unfortunately for Nick, and to a slightly lesser extent for us too, there is a guy who insists on playing along, even though he doesn’t know the songs. He’s a technically gifted player, but the result is very distracting. I’m not sure if God exists, (and that statement, and subsequent discussion, lives in an entirely other blog), but when the guy accidentally drops his guitar and cracks the neck, my first reaction was to look upwards and check…

Others join in who, unlike Nick, are showing the effects of drinking all night in the fingers, and struggle to remember chords, or words, or indeed who they are, and Nick subtly puts his guitar away and we sneak off, thanking our gracious hosts and leaving them to clear up the mess, both bottle and human based. It’s 2.30am when we leave, 3.00am when we drop Nick and Kylie off, and 3.30am when we get back our apartment.

Despite the late night, we’re up and wandering through the market at the port by 10.00am the next day, and then find the much better and more local market in the town. By this time the heat of the day is starting to tell. A quick stop at the supermarket to get something to take with us, and we’re on our way back to the Taylor’s house to meet the kids. Although we’ve only been in the apartment for 24 hours, we feel grounded and comfortable in Fremantle, something we really haven’t felt since leaving Kirstie and Manu’s in Sydney. On the way there, we both agree that meeting Nick and Kylie has already had a lot to do with that.

Of course, the kids are great. After the standard initial 10 minutes wariness, they are showing us around their parts of the house, their Playstation games, the Foosball table, the incredibly over-engineered playhouse and of course the swimming pool. The garden is as impressive as the house, and Nick is slightly embarrassed by his lack of organisation in the shed. I try to tell him that even knowing what any of these tools do is a lot better than I can manage, but he doesn’t seem convinced and carries on apologising.

As well as raising these three kids (and Jesse, from a previous relationship), rebuilding a house, running a computer business, being a well respected and busy musician he has now embarked on a four year degree course at the local university – the same place Kylie has just graduated from – studying sustainable energy. One of his plans involves building a fully sustainable house as one of the projects. Kylie is a little bit younger, but as accomplished. These guys are a formidable team - if I could achieve half of what these guys already have, let alone what’s to come, I’d be a happy man.

We graze on all manner of snacks, laze in the pool, drink more beer, Chelle gets involved in a Hula Hoop show (the big plastic rings, not the potato based snack) and a snowboard game on the Playstation, and then we are fed a fantastic meal of rice, salad and green-cheesy pie. Tomorrow is the first day back at school for all the kids and Kylie, who teaches at a different school, so hair must be washed, bags must be readied, teeth must be cleaned and bed time is a strict 8.30pm.

We sit in the dining room and chat, I get to strum Nick’s loverly Lyrebird guitar, we leave Chelle and Kylie upstairs and sit in Nick’s office to swap music and we eventually leave them alone at 10.30pm. What a gorgeous day. They insist that we call in for tea on our way to the airport, and we readily agree. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye.

The next morning we have a bit of admin to attend to. What with it being Chelle’s birthday the next day, she has finally decided what she wants to do, so we go and book a dolphin trip at the Visitor’s Information. I get half an hour to find a present that isn’t pointless, too big, too heavy, and happen across a store in Freo (the locals call it Freo, so we shall from now on) that almost gives me too many options. Luckily a necklace ‘jumps’ out at me, and I find a card with dolphins on the front to go with the trip. On the way back to pick up the car we pass a busker with a lisp. No big deal, but if you were busking, and you had a lisp, would you really choose to play George Harrison’s ‘Thomething’?

Today’s plan is to drive up the coast and visit Kirstie’s mum, who lives north of Perth for 6 months every year, living in either Sussex or France the rest of the time. Kirstie had sent on some cards for Chelle’s birthday, and Claire had sent a CD with all the pictures she took on New Years Eve, plus we thought it would be nice to meet her anyway.

We both managed to miss an obvious turn off and soon found ourselves driving through the centre of Perth, but a combination of guesswork and quick map-reading soon had us on the right road. We did manage to find our way back to Oxford Street in Leederville, and nearly stopped for poached eggs…

The Perth Aquarium is (obviously) right near the coast and we called in on the way. We had been lurking around Aquariums for our whole trip, and not managed to make it through any of the main doors, so with an hour to spare we paid the rather large entry fee and headed in. Boy was it worth it. All the displays leading down to the main room are interesting in themselves, and relate to the variety of life found on the West Australia coastline, but it’s the underwater walk-through which has the all important (and much over-used) ‘Wow’ factor. Talking of over-used words, this was indeed ‘Awesome’. The usual glass tube under a huge tank arrangement is used here, as you would expect, but the shear variety of sea creatures, and their size and frequency, is what makes the difference. We went round twice, just to make sure we hadn’t missed anything, but it was so hard to tell. The sharks didn’t look toothless and bored, the turtles and stingrays glided around looking cool, heaps of smaller interesting fish looked perky and interesting, and the signage was easy to understand and well laid out.

Outside we watched a huge ray leap out of the water, inside the jellyfish glowed and Nemo swam around his own little tank, but didn’t talk to us. It was time to move on.

Kirstie’s mum, or Gloria as we should call her because that’s her name, lives in a caravan park near Burns Beach for 6 months of the year, and has done for a couple of years since selling her last place just up the coast to finance this and a place in the South of France. She was proud to tell us that she was 80 this year, but worried that it might affect her chances of getting a visa next year. She has been coming to Australia for 23 years now. The caravan was one of those places that isn’t really a caravan. A lounge, kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom, laundry and decking, with a carport outside, it was homely and comfortable enough to make me feel a little sleepy, and I struggled to keep my eyes open while Gloria and Michelle stood in the kitchen nattering. Until the phone rang, that is. The dolphin trip was cancelled thanks to the weather forecast of storms. We were both a little annoyed, but understood that it would be pointless to go out in a storm. We hoped that they would go out the next day, because that would be our last chance.

We liked Gloria very much, and finally left her in peace by 6.00pm, when we had a walk along the beach near her park, before heading back south to Freo. The evening was taken up with laundry (2 loads), getting online (blog upload and many, many emails to read reply to) and eating eggs and beans, which had originally been bought for breakfast. By midnight the rain was pouring down outside, and an hour later it was joined by thunder and lightning. Neither of us could sleep, so we passed the time by deciding whether it really was Chelle’s birthday yet because of the time differences. She says it just means that she effectively has 2 birthdays, and I agree just in case she’s actually right. And it is, after all, one of her birthdays.

Chelle likes the necklace, the dolphin card has lost a bit of it’s sparkle thanks to the trip cancellation but is still appreciated, and we decide to take the ferry along the Swan River to Perth, as Nick had recommended. As chance sometimes has it, Nick rings as we are sitting on the small boat about to leave Freo, and we have to turn down a coffee meeting that morning. The ferry trip is excellent, lasts about 30 minutes, and is a big help in getting our bearings. There are a lot of impressive houses overlooking the river, one of which, the captain tells us, is worth A$85M. To over look the sea I might pay that, but a river?

Landing in Perth is strange because it feels so familiar, and we catch the free Cat bus into the city. A quick saunter through the CBD leads to the train station, where we catch a train back to Freo and jump on the free Cat bus there too.

We get off near the Visitors Centre and go to re-book the dolphin trip for the following day, except someone forgot to put us on the list, and there is only one space left. I think the people in the centre realised just how annoyed we were by the time we left.

The rain had started falling again by the time we got back to Freo, so we checked out some bookshops, had a snack and some coffee and nipped back to the apartment for a shower before grabbing the bottle of pink we had bought at the winery in Margaret River and eating at a noodle place in town. Most of the conversation revolved around how much we like it here.

And so, just a few words from ‘Mrs’. Some of you have said when does Chelle get a go at the blog, but, well quite frankly Stephen’s been doing such a grand ole job, I don’t really like to interfere.. and when he’s tapping away on the keys, its not like I’m lazing around doing nothing just in case you wondered - I’m normally found vaguely planning our next few days with maps and the like and trying to sort out where we are staying. It’s worked quite well so far, well just the one small hic-cup that you may just read about in a few days time, but my part of the deal has gone quite well so far I’d like to think. I’ve got quite good with the maps now – although I still get lost when I let go of them, and go out for a run – I know, keep the sea on the left.. (and Jill just in case, no I’m still not good enough to plan our bike routes when I get back!) I officially retire on the planning front once we hit the USA though.. uho, hope that doesn’t mean I have to write that part of the blog.. or drive even for that matter.

Anyway, its my birthday, so thought it’s a pretty good excuse for me to get just a little bit of a go on the keyboard.

I’m never a big fan of having a birthday at home – winter birthdays are rubbish when you hate the cold, so I’ve often tried to escape to somewhere a bit warmer instead. OK, so Cornwall was pushing it a bit last year maybe. This year tops the lot by far though – Perth is just gloriously hot, even I had to admit to being a little bit warm. Wonder if I can come here again next year?? Despite the whole dolphin trip disappointment, I have a great birthday (what is it – we seem to have done lots of boat type things – I normally shudder at the thought of a boat unless I am attached to waterskis trailing behind the boat..)

A big big thank you to everyone who sent messages/cards/texts - it was lovely – thank you.

Now, what shall we do tomorrow….

It’s dry the next morning, definitely not Chelle’s birthday anymore, and again we walk down to the ferry terminal, this time to catch one to Rottnest Island. Named by a Dutch explorer, who famously thought that the local marsupials, called ‘quokkas’ and found only on this island, were big rats and so called it a ‘Rat Nest’. Nice.

It’s a longer journey, which Chelle copes with very well considering her dislike of being on boats, and we are soon walking to one of the beaches on the island. No cars are allowed on Rottnest, so the only ways to get around are by bike, by foot, or by the bus which circulates the island on a regular timetable. The first beach is quite busy so we carry on walking. It’s a hot day and we’re pleased to reach the second, much emptier beach, called ‘Longreach’. T-shirts are pulled off, bags are dropped and we run into the clear water, eager to cool down. Within 10 minutes of sitting down on the beach we are both dry, such is the power of the sun, and sunscreen is called upon to do it’s job well – there is a lack of shade on this beach. The other end of the beach is overlooked by a collection of fairly primitive buildings that are available to stay in. I decide it would be a great place to spend a few weeks and write, Chelle decides it would be a great place to swim, run and cycle.

According to the Bill Bryson book I am reading, he thinks that Australia has too many tourist attractions and not enough tourists. I’m quite pleased about that as we hop on and hop off the bus, stopping at various places around the island, and for a lot of the time we are on our own. We sit and have a beer while waiting for the ferry back in the early evening and the open-air bar is full of quokkas and peacocks who seem to pay no regard to us.

When we get back to the apartment we cook, sit and watch the Bridget Jones movie and generally put off the fact that we really should be packing as neither of us wants to leave Freo, or indeed Australia. We’re booked on a flight to New Zealand tomorrow night, and it’s touch and go whether we’ll be on it.

We go to bed late but it doesn’t make a lot of difference as the rain falls from about 3.00am, and means business. It has some catching up to do, what with Perth being essentially dry for the last two months, and has chosen our last day to get cracking.

We have to be out of the apartment by 10.00am, and we’re almost packed and discussing what to do when the cleaner turns up. She’s another ‘bloody Pom’, and we have a good chat before getting out of her way. Just running to the car-park leaves me almost soaked through such is the ferocity of the downpour, and we load up quick.

Fremantle is the kind of place that attracts oddities, people who maybe feel that they stand out in more conventional places, and one of those is multi-millionaire Peter ?????. Peter has built and lost his fortune more than once, but has maintained an obsession with cars and motorbikes which finally manifested itself into the Fremantle Motor Museum in the late 90’s. Situated down by the port in one of the old import sheds, this mostly private collection was a perfect destination for us in the pouring rain – although while we walked round the staff, and indeed the roof, were struggling to keep the water at bay – and we used up a good couple of hours enjoying the collection which included an impressive Bentley, one of Jackie Stewart’s Formula 1 cars and the Aussie land speed record holder.

We drove back into town and parked up, deciding that this would be a good day to go to the movies. We booked our tickets to see Sweeney Todd and have an hour or so to kill, so we buy some postcards, sit in a café and write in an old school style, just for a change, to our folks back in the UK.

The movie is great, it’s still light when we emerge from the dark cinema (weird), and we jump in the car ready to visit the Taylor family for the last time on this trip. The kids are excited and, apparently, upset because they didn’t realise that we had to go back home and thought that we would be coming round all the time. How sweet is that?

Nick has been kitchen monitor this time and we have gorgeous veggie pate and home made bread, a broccoli and rice pie, and copious amounts of fruit, washed down with some bubbly stuff. The kids do a gymnastic show, I have a last fuseball game with Max (which he genuinely wins and accuses me of letting him win!) and we have to leave by 9.00pm because we have a car to get rid of, and a long time on planes ahead.

Thanks Nick, Kylie, Amber, Max and Ellie – it was so hard to leave because you all made us feel so welcome.

The airport is an hour’s drive, we drop off the car, run into the terminal and try to check in on the auto check-in screen. It tells us to go to the desk, and we are sent to another, where the extremely helpful Qantas woman checks us in for both our flights (we’re flying to Sydney and then connecting to Christchurch) and ensures that we don’t have to collect our bags until we get to the final destination.

We saunter through the security, sit down near our gate, and wait. And wait. And wait. We decide to have coffee but there is a long queue, so we wait for that too. Eventually our plane is ready, 2 hours late, and because a previous flight had been cancelled, it is rammed. At one point, we fully expect the crew to start putting people in the overhead lockers. By the time we take off, the captain is announcing that anyone with connecting flights at Sydney should keep listening for information. It’s 1.15 in the morning, and it’s going to be a long night.

10 weeks away, and we're still talking!

(Stephen and Michelle, Perth Australia, 30th January 2008. Picture by 'Jot' Nick!)

We listen to the news on the radio in the cab on the way to the airport. All sorts of wild and gruesome theories are being pushed forward as to how Heath Ledger died, although the ever-present drug related line seems the most likely.

The check-in at Adelaide is, if at all possible, even easier than previous ones, and we sit by the gate waiting for our call. We discover the free Wi-Fi, and I send a few quick mails, one of which is returned by my sister, who is sitting up late at night back in the UK. We have a chat via mail, and I realise how much I’m missing her. After watching a bloke a few yards away from us get arrested by about 8 police, we are the last ones on the plane, it’s not very full and the two hours er, fly by (thankyouverymuch). The views out of the window are stunning, and very red, as the city quickly gives way to the fabled Aussie outback.

It’s incredibly hot as we land in Alice Springs Airport. We find a cab, which thankfully has AC, and it drops us off at our hostel just outside the town. This hostel was chosen on the basis that it had a pool, as we had all day there before our coach trip to Uluru early the next morning. Unfortunately the water was an ugly green colour, with stuff floating in it, and a big sign saying it was closed, so we decided to walk into town, in the midday sun. There were no mad dogs about, only us, and 10 minutes later we made it into the rather small CBD. We found some food, quickly, and got out of town. It might have been that we had become used to the big cities of Australia, but The Alice, as it is known to the locals, felt scary in the daylight, let alone how it must feel at night. The hostel owners assured us that it was safe, but we bought at the supermarket to cook at the hostel just in case.

Our room had AC, and a telly that was so fuzzy it was like watching snow, which in 40 degree heat, is quite surreal. We read, wrote, napped, and Chelle cooked in the cramped and sweltering shared kitchen before we eat outside, appreciating both the clear skies and the very slight reduction in temperature.

We’re up at 5.30am the next morning, showered, packed, and walking along the road to a much posher hotel down the road where our coach was picking us up. Tony is our cheery driver, who entertains the sleepy half full coach with some well-rehearsed banter, a movie about bushmen, and a couple of stops for coffee and snacks, one of which is at a camel station. Yes, camels. Some are still used in the bush, having been introduced to help build the railways, but there are now more wild camels than kangaroos.

After a 5 hour drive we get to the Ayers Rock Centre, 20 km from the actual rock. There are 5 or 6 different places, ours of course being the last, and the furthest out from all the others. This is the only dorm room we have booked on the whole trip, and the tiny room has four beds in it. We select ours, with Chelle on top of course, and one of our other room-mates arrives. His Korean name is so difficult to pronounce that he tells us to call him ‘Clark’. So we do. He has been working as a fruit picker for 4 months, and is now doing the travelling bit. Considering he could speak no English when he arrived 4 months ago, his conversation is great, and we exchange stories before heading off to book our trip. We’ve left this one to chance a bit, and having booked our trip at 2.30 in the afternoon, we’re climbing on the coach an hour later. Uluru is now a national park so costs us another $25 each, and the first stop is the Cultural Centre, which explains the rock’s history according to the Aboriginal people who now own and run the park in conjunction with the Government. The rock was finally, and rightly, returned to them in 1985, after protracted negotiation, which is why it is now referred to as Uluru, the Aboriginal name, and not Ayer’s Rock, the white name. The centre in which you stay is still called Ayers Rock, but it is outside the National Park and I guess the Aboriginals don’t have any say in that.

After the centre we are driven around the rock itself. It is, surprisingly, smaller than I imagined it would be, but much more impressive. The Aboriginal People discourage visitors from climbing the rock, likening it to playing football in the Vatican, and the trip organisers tend to use any excuse to close the climb. We had already decided that we wouldn’t, out of respect. By the time we stop and get out of the coach to take some pictures, and talk a short walk to a waterhole closer to the rock, the sky is looking darker and darker, and sure enough as we reach the sunset viewing area, it starts to rain. It’s not that it never rains out here, it’s that it is ‘unusual’. So, instead of sunset pictures of Uluru, we have pictures of Uluru with an angry dark sky and rain. We don’t mind too much.

When we get back to the hostel we change quickly and hit the pool. It’s fantastic. I get to meet our fourth roomie, Aphed. A Hungarian Aussie, he has been to an old friend’s funeral out in the bush, and has all his bush camping gear with him to go off the next day. By the time Chelle returns from the pool, Aphed has gone for a walk, so we go and find some food and a beer, and listen to the worst country singer I have ever listened to. So far. I do a bit more writing, Chelle does some reading, and we creep into the room without waking Clark or Aphed.

We are both awake early, and creep out of the room without waking Clark or Aphed, to go to the ‘Lookout’, a hill near the hostel. It’s quiet, and peaceful, and very dry. You would never guess that 12 hours ago it poured with rain. Chelle goes for a swim, I write, we pack and wait for the airport coach. We realise that Chelle never got to meet Aphed, as he was either asleep or not around whenever she was in the room.

At the airport I am pulled aside and told that I have volunteered for an explosives test. Luckily I test negative, although the guy tells me that my bag has been sitting on grass that had fertilizer in it, which is a form of Glycerin. One element short of Nitro-glycerin.

As we fly into Perth, the ground still looks browny red, right up until the airport comes into view. When we leave the plane I go to the toilet and have to wait for a space at the urinals. A phone rings. One of the blokes standing at the urinal fishes around in his pocket, pulls out his phone, and answers it, as if he’s standing in his office.

The shuttle takes us into the city, and as we get dropped off at The Emperor’s Crown, our hostel, the driver tells us that there are Fireworks down by the river tonight, and we might want to go down. We suddenly remember that it’s Australia Day, a public holiday in the way that the Americans celebrate Independence Day, and we have just enough time to shower, change and head down to the Swan River.

It’s a ten minute walk into the city from the hostel, and about 5 minutes down to the river from there. It’s a bit like going to a football match – as you get closer to the venue, more and more people join you walking in the same direction, and by the time we reach the river, there are thousands of people about. Later, on the news, we hear that over 400,000 people were in attendance, but it just seems a lot when you’re in the thick of it.

We settle down in Logan Park, just back from the river, watch a couple of local bands and take in the atmosphere. It’s great to watch another country celebrate being themselves, and I wonder why we in England seem to struggle with being English, why being patriotic has been hijacked by the few. Australia Day is all about the day that the First Fleet landed at Botany Bay in 1788, and when the fireworks start they are accompanied by a soundtrack which, as stated in the beginning of the show, celebrates Australia’s cultural diversity. To represent England there is a mercifully short blast of The Spice Girls (who, a few days later cancelled all their tour dates in Australia), Scotland get Rod Stewart (born in South London), and there is a didgeree-doo or two in there to represent the indigenous people.

To be fair, we had witnessed Sydney’s New Year fireworks 26 days before, and these were never going to compare, but they had enough to get some ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ from the crowd, and we walked back, seemingly with the rest of Perth, to find a woman on the phone in the hostel common room complaining loudly, in the most grating of Northern English accents, that Perth was crap and there was nothing going on.

As in the UK, a bank holiday weekend drags on (freelancers don’t get paid on bank holidays, remember, so we don’t really like them too much) through Sunday and Monday, and the early Sunday morning walk we had started was turning into an epic. We had planned to walk towards Leederville, a well-heeled suburb of Perth, and catch a bus. Of course, no buses were running along that route and after an hour of walking in the increasingly baking sun we finally arrived at Oxford Street, the hub of Leederville. Disappointingly very few places were open, but the one we were particularly looking for actually was. Oxford 130 was one of those places we had read about in a number of different places, and it lived up to it’s played down image. Two shops roughly knocked into one, knackered furniture, posters covering every inch of wall and ceiling, loud music (Kings of Leon), and three people behind the bar that looked much cooler than you could ever be. It would have looked great anyway, but after an hour of walking in the scorching sun it looked heavenly.

We had been warned that Sundays were the busiest day, and rather like the waves at the beach, locals ruled the roost and would have all the best tables, and probably, ALL the tables. We were in luck and almost ran for the empty booth at the side of the café. Having ordered our food, we started sorting out the Sunday paper, dividing the sections up, and then spent more time watching everyone else in the café from our vantage point.

The poached eggs lived up to the billing, as did the super chunky toast and the orange juice, all brought to our table with just the right amount of cool.

We walked along Oxford Street, selecting the side that had the most shade, browsed in the two stores that were open, noted the others that looked interesting, and tried to prepare for the long walk back into Perth. Just round the corner we found another of those second-hand book stores we seem to like so much, at which I managed to find more Clive James books to add to my growing collection. The road selected for the journey back was no shorter, but had a lot more shade, and half an hour into the return journey, Chelle noticed a man sitting at a bus stop, and the sign on the stop indicated that a bus was due in 6 minutes. This, it turned out, was one of the three free buses which sub-divide the city centre, which all ran on bank holidays.

The air conditioning on the bus, the new opium of the masses on the west coast, was fantastic. We resolved to stay on the bus for the whole loop, to get our bearings, but mostly to sit in the AC, finally getting off at the paved mall which led us to the train station, for timetables and bank holiday running information, before hitting the stores and shopping at the Quiksilver store.

Back to the hostel where sandwiches are made, layers of clothes are prepared and the train timetable studied. We’re off to Bureswood Park for more of those ‘Movies in the Park’. The only problem is that, once we get off the train at Bureswood, we have no idea where to go. When the moment arrives, we follow all the other people, reasoning that they must know where they’re going, and see a minibus parked near the station. We ask a guy standing nearby if the bus goes to the ‘Movies in the Park’, and he tells us it goes to the resort, but it’s near the park.

Finally, after a walk through a casino, three car parks, and half the park, we find the place and settle down to eat, drink and watch “The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”.

Judging by the comments we hear on the way out, we are in the minority who enjoyed the movie, and we discuss it while trying to find our way back to the station in the dark. As we reach the station (which we found more by luck than judgement), a train pulls in, and we rush to get our tickets out of the machine in time to jump on. It’s a good job we did, as checking the timetable later on back in our room reveals that that was the last one that night.

So, it’s a bank holiday Monday, in summer – what do you do? If you were us, you’d go to the beach of course! Our newly found confidence in the train system had led us to plan a day out to Cottesloe Beach, with a stop off in posh Subiaco (the Perth equivalent of Hampstead) on the way. Each ticket you buy for the Perth Transport system lasts for two hours, and you get as many journeys - within it’s zone parameters - as you can squeeze in, so the plan was to stop off, have brekky, and get back on in time to get to the beach on the same ticket.

We look for the local market, find a building with ‘Market’ spelt out along the top that is all closed up, walk up and down the main street and can only find one place that actually has prices on it’s menu and isn’t too full of expensively dressed ‘ladies-wot-lunch’. It’s still expensive, and not a patch on yesterday’s. And then, on the way back to the station, we see the hand written sign that says ‘Market’, and find this hidden gem, with an excellent looking café and stalls and stalls of foody snacks, cheap clothes and specialist items. We buy some muffins to eat later on the beach.

The beach itself is a good 10 minute walk from the station, and by the time we get there it’s time for coffee. A group of ageing cyclists have just pulled up at the same café, and we overhear one of them say that they deserve a coffee after the 160km ride they’ve just done. The waiter reckons they deserve a beer, at least. I think some kind of psychological counselling would be in order, because we’re melting in the sun after a 10 minute walk…

We attempt to set up on the beach, but the wind is so strong that sand blasting is a serious concern, so we retire to the grass on top of the cliff and read, and doze, and apply sunscreen, and read, and doze, and so on.

When we feel pretty baked, we head back to the station and decide to get off at Leederville for coffee at our new favourite place. Turns out that the station is about 20 yards further down the road than we had walked the previous day. We could have avoided all that walking after all…

It also appears that there has been some kind of event in the main street, as teams of people are dis-assembling barriers and sweeping up debris. Chelle asks one of the guys who tells her that the annual Perth Cycle Race had finished about 20 minutes ago. She’s not too happy about this one. To make up for it (well, slightly) I buy noodles and rice at Hans and we get the train back to the hostel. It’s been around 35 degrees today, and more is promised tomorrow.

We have a couple of people to visit in Perth, one of which is Ipswich escapee Becky, a friend of Michelle’s from running clubs and gyms in our hometown. She had done the travelling thing and met an Aussie called Mike in Las Vegas, eventually settling down in a suburb of Perth called Stirling where their first child, Tyler, had arrived 7 months ago.

Becky’s dad Clive, and her sister Amy, who both also ran with Michelle, were over from the UK, so we had arranged by e-mail to go and see them all. Becky picked us up from the Stirling train station and drove us the couple of miles to her house, where we met Tyler for the first time, and chatted with them all before having lunch out on the patio. Our phone, which had rung perhaps three times in the last 6 weeks, rang three times in about 15 minutes, the third of which was Nick from The ‘Gong. I stepped outside and caught up with my friend, before we all piled into Becky’s car and headed down to nearby Scarborough Beach for an hour to enjoy the shade, while Michelle and Clive fought some waves. Sorry, caught some waves.

By the time we got back to their house Mike was back from work and we had a while chatting with him before he gave us a lift back to the station. Becky and Mike had only just announced their engagement, so here are our public ‘good luck’ wishes guys!

Back in Perth I called Nick (a different Nick to Nick from The ‘Gong), a guy I had been exchanging emails with as part of an online music based group, called ‘Jot’ for over 10 years, but had never met, or even spoken to. It’s a small, invitation only group that grew out of a list for American band ‘Jellyfish’. When a few of us were getting flamed a bit too often for talking about stuff other than ‘Jellyfish’, the idea of a separate list came about and then there was JOT – Jellyfish Off Topic. We’ve covered a lot of ground over ten years on the list, mostly non-music related, and I feel that we know each other pretty well, but it was still a little nerve-racking knowing that we were going to meet up. What made it worse was that Nick’s wife Kylie had been on the list for over 6 years, so I felt like I knew her already too.

He knew we were in Perth, and was waiting for our call so we could arrange a ‘Jotogether’. Within about 30 seconds we were chatting like old friends, and eventually we had to stop talking or Chelle and I would have gone hungry that evening, what with everything closing so bloody early. Arrangements had been made for the weekend. We made it to a veggie house called Moaz in the centre of town with five minutes to spare, wolfed down some falafel and salad, and headed for the Brass Monkey on James St for a wheat beer.

The next morning we had a rough plan to visit Kings Park, but wandered down the road for some breakfast first. Nick called, wondered what we were up to and offered a Taylor Tour, suggesting that we start at Kings Park. We jumped down his throat. I explained where we were, and that I was wearing a check shirt, so Nick would recognise us. “I should look for one skinny brown and one white fat person, if your blog is to be believed” he said. Either way, I had seen recent pictures of the Taylors, so was fairly confident that I would recognise him before he recognised me.

Of course I was in the toilet when he arrived. I went back outside to see a bloke sitting in my seat chatting to my wife, and hoped it was Nick. Luckily it was, and we hugged like the old friends we now were. He filled his frame almost as comfortably as I do, and I told him that his voice ‘sounded’ the way he typed; confident, self-assured and well informed. They were all good things in my book.

We all relaxed after a few minutes, and it was clear that Chelle wasn’t going to get much of a word in.

The tour started up in the park. Nick had the reassurance of someone who had done this tour before, and we had the luck of being with someone who knew their way around. Again! Soon we had an outstanding view right across Perth and the Swan River, pictures were taken, and a short walk through a tiny bit of this huge park followed before heading back to the car. We drove along the River towards Fremantle, our base for the second week here, and home for the Taylors, stopping off at various beaches and a couple of places in the port to look out into the Indian Ocean, before heading into downtown ‘Freo’ as it’s known to the locals. Actually downtown is pushing it a bit – it is essentially three main roads that criss-cross each other, with the port and train station at one end, the Market at the second and the former Jail, now a major tourist spot, at the third.

We parked and went to the Mad Monk bar to sample some of their microbrewery produce, which was excellent, especially the ‘Epic’, and Nick then drove us back into Perth. We arranged to drive to the Taylor house on Saturday after we get back from a jaunt southwards for a party, and then again on Sunday to eat, and swim, and meet the three Taylor kids. We couldn’t wait.

The rest of the day disappeared in a blur of shopping, writing, reading and packing before we found some cheap noodles and prepared to say goodbye to Perth – for the moment.

Another hot day as we walk down into the city to pick up our latest hire car from the Thrifty office. Of course there is no record of our request, so we follow the usual course of phone calls, going away for a coffee, and going back when they have a our car ready. It’s a brand new Hyundai something or other, and we pick up our bags from the hostel, find our way out of Perth and head south.
We’re back on Highway 1 – we seem to have been driving on Highway 1 since we got here – and after about 100km we decide to pullover and have our pre-prepared picnic. There is a sign ahead which says ‘Florida Beach’, so we take a right off the Highway and pick our way through a whole bunch of small housing developments. It seems that the Australians have just twigged that all that land by the beach might be a good place to build a house, and so blocks of houses are appearing all the way down the coast, Of course, they have so much coast, that they could build for the next 200 years and not begin to cover anywhere near the length of coastline there is on offer.

Florida Beach has a little carpark, and there are three cars in it. A short walk takes us to the actual beach, and it’s glorious. A woman and four kids are 300 metres to our right, to our left there is a man with two kids and a kayak, and infront of us is about 10 metres of golden sand and the Indian Ocean.

We sit and eat our picnic and look out to the ocean. When I look over at Michelle, she is grinning nearly as much as I am.

I! AM AN FBI AGENT

(Michelle and Stephen, at Uluru, January 25th, 2008)


The drive from Melbourne to Adelaide incorporates the ‘Great Ocean Road’, and that seems to be a big claim. Especially as the first bit we got to was so far from the ocean you couldn’t see it.

The first stop is Torquay, or Surf Central on the south coast. This is the place which hosted the birth of competition surfing, with both Rip Curl and Quiksilver calling Torquay home. Bells Beach is the venue that, in April each year, provides the waves for the Rip Curl Classic, and is of course also famous for being in the last scene in the best movie ever made, ‘Point Break’. Except the beach used to shoot the last scene was actually in Hawaii, and all they did was put a sign up saying ‘Bells Beach’, and have a Railway Station sign in the background saying ‘Torquay’. The real Bells Beach looks very different, has no railway station, and today is as flat as a pancake.

“We’ll get him when he comes back in!”
“He’s not coming back in…” (That’s for Nick from The ‘Gong!).

Anyway, we go and visit the Torquay Surfing Museum, which is really good and takes up a good lump of our day. The rest of Torquay is quickly visited as there isn’t actually much else there, and we get back on the Great Ocean Road towards our booked motel in Apollo Bay. We get an apologetic call from the booking agency telling us that our motel has had a flood, and our room is no longer available, but they have found us a cabin on a camp site nearby.

When we turn up at the site, the owners have a bag of bedding and towels for us, and point us to our cabin – which is excellent. The cricket is on, we drive into town and get some snacks from the supermarket and walk past the motel we had booked. We agree that we got the best out of that deal. It’s a dark and stormy night by the time we get back so we cozy up in the cabin, watch some tennis and have an early night.

The next morning is wet, grey, misty and quite cold. Not UK cold, but we have to put on a hoodie with our shorts. Still, such is life, eh. Chelle has read about ‘Mariners Point’, a viewing place above Apollo Bay, so we drive up a long and windy road, park and walk the last 10 minutes before getting to a field full of sheep, with a layer of clouds which seems to be hovering just over our heads, and a view over the bay which, despite the cloud cover, is as spectacular as the Wollongong mountain view.

Driving from Apollo Bay the road veers inland and upwards, and into fairly dense forest. At times it’s difficult to see much further than the front of the car, and with the rain it feels like being in the highlands of Scotland. Back to the coast and we stop and find all the other tourists in Australia have parked up to go and see the ‘12 Apostles’ – rock formations off the coast of Victoria which are slowly disappearing. In fact there are only 7 left, and I can’t help but think the tourist board have put a bit too much effort into promoting something that maybe isn’t as impressive as it thinks it is.

We get lost in Port Campbell, driving past the same signpost three times before finally taking the correct turning (you know, the one we rejected as being the wrong one in the first place) and getting to Port Fairy, where we are booked into Seacombe House which claims to be the oldest building in the town. It’s certainly got a lot of tiny corridors and un-even stairs, which are not designed for heavy awkward bags being carried by a bloke with a bad knee, and our room is no bigger than the bed that’s in it, but it has a lot of charm and there is a lounge which we decamp to for a while. I decide to catch up on some writing, and Michelle decides to go and have a look around.

By the time we get back from eating – the walk into town and back was notable only for the lack of people, or any signs of life at all – we expected a few more of the 20 or so small rooms to be occupied, but with the exception of one, all the doors were still open and the rooms empty. We try and log in to the Wi-Fi that the hostel has, but can’t. A cat appears and becomes our friend, before demanding to be let out of the front door, and we sit reading in the lounge before giving in and climbing over our bags into bed.

The next morning Chelle gets lost again while out for a run, we pack and finally get going in the misty morning weather. After a drive around Portland we stop at Nelson for lunch at the local pub and get to our booked cabin in Robe late afternoon, with the sun having broken through. We check out the Information Centre, which has free WI-FI access, and begin to sort out the last leg of our Australian Adventure, in Perth. When the centre closes, we carry on outside until it is too windy, so we move to the car. Within an hour we have booked places to stay, checked out things to do, and mailed our friends Becky, Nick and Kylie to warn them that we’re coming to visit.

We call in at the supermarket on the way home and get some food to cook in the cabin, which we eat while watching Leyton Hewitt lose to Jorkovic in the 4th round of the Australian Open. We walk over to the beach to watch the sun go down, and try and avoid kids on bikes back at the cabin site.

Chelle’s on a roll, and runs along the beach again the next morning. Luckily the running kit has had a wash. We have brekky in the cabin before throwing everything back in the car and setting off for Adelaide. Today’s drive is a long way, and consists mostly of nothing. The first 170km of road runs along the Coorong National Park, with only one gas station along the way. Chelle drives first today, because I will drive into the city later. As established, her navigating and me driving is the preferred arrangement. We see about 10 other cars for the first three hours, one of which is a Police car that follows for about 20km, before blasting past. The picnic we had packed came out near Murray Bridge, and a German bloke explains to us about the ferry that is crossing the river in front of us. Not that we’d asked him, but he seemed keen to tell us anyway.

30km down the road we come across ‘Hahndorf’, which, according to the Lonely Planet bible, is the oldest German settlement in Australia. Coincidence? I don’t think so…

Suddenly there are three lanes heading into Adelaide, but not all full of traffic. At this time on a Wednesday afternoon on the M25? 5mph, max. The road layout is so easy to follow that we pull up outside our hostel before we know it, we get our key and load into a good room across the road from the actual hostel in another building, called ‘The Guest Room’. We decide that we won’t need the car anymore, so do the usual “dropping the car off in the middle of town”, followed by the usual “Constables wander around the city taking it all in” thing, and we find ourselves with fresh juices, sitting by the river, having walked through a university campus, and realising that we are in Cambridge – or a near approximation of the UK city. The fact that it’s searingly hot brings us back to reality, and I point out that this must be a rubbish place to keep fit as we watch the umpteenth set of runners or cyclists wiz past us.

Back into the CBD (Central Business District, do keep up) we find the inevitable free bus which circles the city, get on, and stop near our lodgings at Victoria Square – also home to the temporary ‘Down Under’ cycle race village which of course, we visit. There’s not too much going on, as the race is happening elsewhere and the teams are out with the race, but we do get to look around the associated stalls in the main tent and find a pushbike made by Ducati. I’ll let you all think of your own punchline about it being the only Ducati I should be allowed near these days etc etc.

After showering and changing we walk the short distance back into the city, have some not so good cheap noodles, and after a bit of a longer walk than we had planned, find ourselves at a pub/hotel called Grace Emily’s watching the last 30 seconds of a set from a solo singer and the whole 45 minutes of a set from a 3 piece called (we think) ‘Birthglow’. I can’t help but think that John Peel would have loved them, quirky and very indie as they were, and we feel very comfortable in this place, surrounded by skinny, glasses wearing music nerds and their doting young muses. The beer was nice too.

This is one of the good hostels that offer a ‘free’ (or, included in the price as we like to think) breakfast, so we go and have some cereal and toast before sorting out a pile of stuff to send back home. Most of it seems to be clothes that I just don’t need, but there are also some CDs and books, and our presents from Kirstie and Manu. We took the stuff to the main Post Office, bought a box, packed it all, and posted it to ourselves. By sea, which of course is the cheapest way, it cost A$70, and will take up to three months. We should be there to collect it.

Across the road we caught a tram west to Glenelg, a beach suburb of Adelaide, where very attractive waitresses made ok lattes, the beach was full of teenagers making a huge racket with the girls all trying to look like Lindsay or Paris, and the boys all trying to look like 16 year old Cory Whatsisname, who has filled the news networks and radio shows with, not so much his out of control infamous party antics, but his insolence, ever since he caused $20,000 damage to his parents house in a Sydney suburb.

We waded out into the water, and it was one of those beaches which is shallow for ever, and it’s beautiful, even with the sound of a thousand teenagers all screaming at once. Actually, I was struck by the fact that all of them, to a teen, smothered themselves – and each other if they could get away with it – with sunscreen as soon as all arrived. Kids with a conscience, eh. Whatever next!

It’s also very, very hot today, and after a while we decide to head out of the rays and into some shade. The Bay Culture Centre is at the main esplanade, so we go and have a look. The old fella who is showing people around asks us where we’re from, we tell him, and he spends the next ten minutes, plus interjections over the next 30, going on about ‘the bloody poms’. This is the perfect place for him because he looks old enough to have been there at the start with Captain Cook. It’s actually a good little centre, and tells the story of South Australia and how, in a perfect bit of irony, Adelaide was the first settlement in the country that wasn’t a penal colony, but was actually set up by an ex-convict. I like the Australian ‘European’ history because it’s all so tangible, and so much has been achieved in a short space of time. So much has been destroyed, too, but I’m still reading about it all so I can’t go into detail yet (I can hear those sighs of relief from here, you know…).

We get the tram back to Adelaide, nurse our tiny bits of sunburn (stomach for me, leg for Chelle) and go over to the backpackers for their weekly BBQ, at which a UK based couple play a few songs on guitar and chello, while a photographer from the Lonely Planet guide takes pics and we stuff ourselves with quiche and salad. We get online to check our flights and get back to our room in time for the late news on the telly, where we find out about Heath Ledger’s death.

He’s a bona-fide Aussie hero, and the media is in overdrive. The next morning, and to be fair the rest of our time in Australia this is the story. He’s a Perth boy and that’s where we will be in a few days time.

The Melbourne Ultimatum…

(Riding the sofa, St Kilda Beach, January 2008)


Chelle spent most of the night either sitting up in bed or sitting in the, er, sitting room of the hostel. She felt right crook, I reckon (see! We speak Aussie!), but – apart from feeling tired – she felt better in the morning. I felt knackered, although to be honest I had slept through most of it, but realised that I should really drive, so after saying goodbye to our new German friends we loaded up and drove off.

Before getting to Phillip Island, where we had a cabin booked for two nights (luxury!), it was deemed important to go to Wilson’s Promontory, a bit of National Park which sticks out below Watarah Beach and Sandy Point, our discoveries of the previous day. Each National Park costs money to get into, to pay for the construction of the gates from which to collect the money I suppose, although they claim it’s for the upkeep of the park. As far as I could tell, ‘upkeep’ means letting things grow in peace without doing anything to them, but what do I know.

We paid our $10, and drove through some bush before following a sign to Whisky Bay. According to the map we had been given, this was a beautiful sandy bay, and when we got there after a 10 minute walk from the car park, we could see that they were spot on. What they hadn’t mentioned, were the damn flies. It really is hard to appreciate scenery with one or both of your hands constantly waving around in front of you.

We almost ran back to the car, and Michelle talked me into driving to Squeaky Beach, which is the main reason for heading down this far. In another of those genius ‘tell it like it is’ Aussie namings, Squeaky Beach is so named because as you walk barefoot in the sand, it squeaks. We tested it out for a few minutes – yes it really does squeak - before high-tailing it back to the fly-free environment of the car. We drove down to Tidal River, drove past all the campsites, wondering how the hell all those people coped with the flies, and headed out of the National Park. As we got to the gates, another first. A kangeroo wandered out of the bush in front of us. Luckily I wasn’t going very fast, and we managed to stop, watch it bounce around in front of the car, stop and look at us, and then bounce off the other way. How cool!

We could tell that the day was going to get better when I noticed that we were very short of gas, and about two miles down the road a gas station appeared. They are few and far between out here, and everyone tells you to fill up when you can, not when you need to.

It’s a long drive up and along the coast but Chelle is feeling better, it’s a sunny day and before we know it we are going over the bridge into Phillip Island, and heading for the main town, Cowes. Yes, Cowes. Phillip Island is twinned with the Isle of Wight. It’s a small island, and within 15 minutes we’re driving up the main street, turning left and finding our YHA lodge, which is actually a cabin. A walk to the supermarket and a splendid Chelley-cooked stir-fry later, we walk down to the waterfront where there is an evening market happening, along with a solo singer doing Crowdies songs quite well. We sit and listen as the sun disappeared, and it’s a good end to a good day.

It’s a bad start to any kind of day the next morning, with rain falling, a grey sky and the necessity of wearing more than just a t-shirt for the first time in a long, long time. Breakfast is provided at this place, and we have cereal, toast and coffee over in the communal dinning room, sitting and chatting with a Nigerian Lady and her three kids, who all now live in Melbourne and are making use of the school holidays. The room is packed full of people in no real hurry to go out in the rain, but we eventually decide to go down to the main beach and have a look. Looking is all we can do, because Watamai Beach is closed. It’s easy to see why, as it is difficult to stand upright in the winds that are blasting off of the sea. The next beach along is only accessible via a steep set of steps, so we try and hold on to each other as we watch the one brave/stupid surfer in the water from the cliffs above. The beautiful houses overlooking the sea provide some distractions as we drive along the clifftop, and we find a café to have coffee and egg sandwiches and take refuge from the wind.

We nearly decide to miss out on Smiths Beach, the final public beach along the south shore of Phillip Island, but then change our minds. We’re glad we did. It’s packed, as it’s the only beach that’s open on the whole island, so we get our towels and books from the car, put on another layer and find a space. It’s not nearly as windy down on the beach, and we settle into watching the hundreds of kids (and adults) with body boards tackle the waves. The lifeguards have about 20 layers of clothes on, and we muse on how long it would take them to get the layers off if they needed to get out in the water quickly.

We reluctantly leave, and nip back to the cabin for more layers and to make some sandwiches, because we’re off to see the Penguin Parade. This is one of those ‘tourist’ events that generally leave me a little cold, along the lines of some of the zoos we’ve been to. Mostly it’s me being a bit of a snob, but sometimes it seems that the event has impinged on the natural order of things, and I often feel that we, as people, have little or no right to be there. But simply by being a tourist I’m perpetuating the order of things, so I guess I don’t really have a leg to stand on. This is something that I could go on about forever, and I do actually lay awake at night thinking about, but suffice to say that I’m still travelling, only with a conscience to always try and do the right thing. More of this probably when we go into the Northern Territory, and see Uluru.

So, anyway! We head for the south-west of the island and firstly the peninsula called The Nobbies – I guess because, no, I have no idea why they’re called The Nobbies. It’s almost literally blowing a gale, and we’re wearing woolly hats and snowboard jackets that we didn’t think we would need until we hit New Zealand. The coast-line is home to seals and, surprisingly, seagulls. Surprisingly, because it never occurred to me that seagulls would have a home.

The Penguin Parade is a fancy name for the moment each evening at dusk when the penguins leave the water, where they have been looking for food, sometimes for up to three or four days, and return to their burrows. The scariest bit of this journey for them is across the beach, where they are exposed to predators and defenceless for the time it takes them to waddle up the sand. In the water they are agile and can get away from most things, and in the bush they are small enough to hide and have camouflage, but across the sand? Scary. So, of course, the centre have set up terracing and lights, where up to three thousand people sit and watch the penguins run for their lives.

Now to be fair, this of course means that the penguins are actually a lot safer then they would be if there wasn’t three thousand people watching their every move, but if you had three thousand penguins, twenty times as big as you, watching you drive home from work every night, wouldn’t it worry you? According to the rangers however, the centre has been there so long that the penguins are used to it, and, as they rightly point out, if they didn’t like it, they would build their burrows on another part of the island without the viewing stations. The centre build lots of burrows for the penguins, which helps because they are essentially quite lazy creatures, but don’t interfere beyond observation, and ensuring that us tourists stay back and don’t interfere either.

Some people seem incapable of following simple instructions, like no flash photography, or don’t try and reach out for the penguins, but I guess these are the people that ignore advice anywhere, and hopefully the Darwin theory will kick in at some point and do the right thing by these idiots.

So I feel somewhat reassured, especially after chatting with Ranger Dan, and we get back to our cabin late and sleep.

This time it’s my turn to feel crook, and I spend most of the night out of bed and feeling sorry for myself. By morning I feel better, if a bit tired, and after Michelle has some breakfast she does first stint at the wheel as we drive back around the coast road to Melbourne. I doze for the first hour or so, and then take over at the wheel as we head into the city, as we have discovered that my driving is better than my navigation, and Chelle’s navigation is a lot better than my driving, or indeed my navigation. Luckily the hostel, in the beachy suburb of St Kilda, is easy to find, and we check in to our expensive double room, which is big enough for the bed and very little else such as bags. Or feet.

The ‘luxury’ (as it is billed) room usually costs $99 a night, which for a double with a bathroom in a beach suburb of a city, isn’t too bad, but because we have managed to schedule our stay to coincide with the Australian Open tennis tournament happening up the road, is now costing us $140 a night. And they can only do 4 nights of the 5 we wanted, so we have found another hostel across the city that has a twin room for the last night. The hostel is part of a chain called ‘Base’, which is a triumph of style over substance. The place is designed to the hilt, with the façade covered in red plastic squares, the reception decked out in funky red and white, a clubby looking bar and lots of good looking staff. But for your $140, you don’t get any towels. They are $6 extra. You are not allowed to bring alcohol into the hostel, but you can drink yourself stupid at the (expensive) bar. The kitchen is big, but it’s hard to find a knife or fork that hasn’t been mauled, and certainly wasn’t washed and dried up, or put away. The washer/dryers are a reasonable cost of a dollar for ten minutes, but there is a minimum charge of $5. Even if you just want to, for example, dry your towel after being on the beach all day because you don’t get towels in your ‘luxury’ room. And there’s more, but I’ll shut up now.

We have to take the car back to the Thrifty office, which of course is in the centre of the city. We have a map in the Lonely Planet bible, which looks useable, so we set off up the St Kilda road, with a plan to turn left onto Flinders Street, and then right into Elizabeth Street, where the office is. This plan goes very well, until we see the no right turn sign at the Elizabeth Street junction with Flinders. It seems that, if we had been in London, what we were trying to do would be turn into Oxford Street. Chelle does her usual top notch navigation job, and, including a few intuitive guesses when we had wandered off the map, we finally find the Thrifty office, just as we realise that we have fill up with gas before returning the car. The three people we ask as we are stopped by the pavement have no idea where we could go, so we set off, following all the one way roads and trying to remember where the office was and stumble across a 7/11 gas station north of the city. We fill up, take the car back, where they don’t bother to check if we’ve filled up or not, and set out down Elizabeth Street for a look see.

It’s a compact city, and all the usual city stores are here. We get down to the station and find Federation Square which seems to be the hub of the city, and where the Information centre can be found. Melbourne has a fantastic tram system, so we buy a weekly ticket each and find the number 16 tram back to St Kilda, which is 5km out of the city, along with all the commuters, which briefly reminds us that normal life is going on around us.

Back at the hostel, and after finding a local supermarket, we manage to cook a noodle stir-fry with a fork, a pan and two toasters, before walking along the beach to the pier. It has been a warm day, but with the wind added to the evening, it’s chilly and we wish we had bought something to wear over our t-shirts. I call my friend Fiona, a St Kilda resident, who I also met in LA, and we arrange to meet the next evening, as well as planning a bit of a reunion with some other Melbourne-ites and Nick, who is visiting for the tennis. I call Ben, one of ‘the others’, who is up for the plan and offers to gather another couple of people. I’m looking forward to seeing them all again.

We go back and watch the tennis, which is happening live just 5km up the road.

Breakfast at the hostel is a reasonable $6, and sets us up for a wander around the area, which we like to do. Some of it is similar to Venice Beach or Santa Monica in it’s welcoming and encouragment of an alternative lifestyle, some of it further away from the coast is like a London suburb with seemingly specific ethnic areas, all mixed in with cafes and those expensive clothes shops with nobody in them. There are plenty of eating options for us, with a healthy slab of veggie or vegan places, and we discuss these later while sitting on the beach. The sun is strong today, and I decide to go for a walk along the boardwalk to find drinks. It’s nearly 4.30pm, and considering it’s school holidays, the middle of summer, and we’re on the beach, all the kiosks bar one have closed down for the day. The one I find is in the process of closing, and it seems odd as people from work start descending on the beach and riding their bikes along the boardwalk.

We leave the beach by 7pm, and eat gorgeous veggie burgers (chickpea for Chelle, tofu for me) with salty, herby big fat chips at a place called ‘Grill’d’, before showering and dressing up in jeans and coats to go and meet Fiona. She turns up in shorts and t-shirt, it’s quite warm out, and we’re way over-dressed.

It’s great to see her again, she looks fantastic, and we buy wine and go back to her excellent flat, which is a two minute walk from the hostel, and chat until we realise it’s 1.30am. We arrange to meet the next night, she insists that we stay at hers for the last night instead of the other hostel, and we walk back to the hostel.

Despite the late night we are up early and eating raisin toast, before walking 50 yards down the road to a bike hire office and getting a couple of ‘cruisers’. The bloke assures us that we won’t need any gears for our journey along the beachfront, so we head off and try and get used to the things. They are so soft it is like trying to ride a sofa, and initially we glide along the flat bike lanes alongside the beach.

There are a couple of steep-ish hills, which would have been easier with a couple of gears to change too, but all in all it’s a fun ride into the wind. We get to Brighton Beach, but continue down to Hampton where we find a waterside café by a yacht club, and drink lattes and water. There is some kind of race going on from this club, and the roads are awash with the spoils of richness – Porsches, Mercedes and all types of SUVs clutter the road while their owners sail water-going versions against each other.

The cycle back is much easier with the wind, and we stop off at a beach that is lined with beach huts. It’s like being on the Suffolk / Norfolk Coast again, without the rain obviously, while the road alongside the beach is just like the beach road from Brighton to Hove in the UK. We feel a little homesick, remember where we are, look up at the sun and carry on having a great time.

Stopping only to consume an ice-cream back at St Kilda, we continue our ride to the north, spotting the port a few km up ahead, to make the most of the hire. It’s a nice ride there, but an absolute killer on the way back. The wind is like a gale coming off the sea, and blowing right in our faces as we try and peddle our sofa-bikes with one gear. After what seems like hours of hard work we make it back to the cycle shop, mention the wind to the guy who says he would have given us mountain bikes if we’d told him we were going that way.

We have plans to meet up in the city tonight with the LA crowd, so we try out a veggie pizza joint in Aclund Street and eat early. They turn out to be more like pies with piles of veggies on top of a wholemeal crust, but we like them anyway, and then get ourselves smartened up for going out. Fiona calls and says she’s running late, gives us the address and says she’ll meet us there. It’s odd dressing up (as well as we can, we hadn’t really packed for social functions), and getting on the tram into the city as the sun went down seemed somehow glamorous. We got off at Collins Street and walked along the road, looking for the number we had been given. It turned out to be about four blocks along, and just as we got there, Fiona stepped off a tram, which had pulled up next to the bar.

I was a little nervous about tonight – this group of people hadn’t been together for three years, since I had been in LA during my lost weekend, and I worried that we would all be sitting looking at each other, wondering what the hell to talk about. I was also nervous for Michelle. Meeting one at a time had been fine, but I worried that meeting 5 in one go might be a bit full on, and that she would feel a bit left out. But I needn’t have worried. She had already meet Nick and Fiona, so they were great, but Ben, Jared and Georgie were excellent, and as soon as we walked in it was all about the hugging, the drinking, the talking, and it was so good to see them all again. Ben has pretty much been frozen in time, and is such a nice guy that I wish there was some way I could help him figure out what it is he wants to do. Jared already knows what he wants, and pretty much knows how to get it. He had an audition set up for the next day, which he still hadn’t learnt any lines for, but he’s the kind of bloke that will charm his way through pretty much anything. Once you get past the bluff he’s a rad ninja to know, and I’m so pleased we got to meet up again. Georgie, well, I don’t really know her that well. She wasn’t around in LA for very long, but we did share a room for a couple of days, and she remembered me as “the Austin Powers bloke”. It could have been worse, I suppose. The bar was pretty empty and the waitresses joined in, and all too soon it was time to go catch a cab, as the trams had long since stopped running.

We had made plans to meet up with Jared in March, on our way back through LA, where he now lives, and more immediate plans to meet with Nick for coffee in the morning, before he flew back to Wollongong early afternoon. A cab ride with Fiona back to St Kilda, and another late night walk back to the hostel.

The next day we meet Nick at Federation Square and he shows us a side street near the station which is chocka with cafes. We sit and have coffee, chatting away until he has to go and get the bus to the airport. The second goodbye is a lot harder, as we won’t see him again for a while. Get sorted, my friend, and we expect to see you on the telly soon.

We wander off around the shopping centre of Melbourne for a while before heading back to Degraves Street and lunching at a wonderful place called ‘Café 5’. If you’re ever in Melbourne… Southbank was next, and a slow walk along the riverside leads to the Casino. Now we’re not what you might call gamblers (as two of the very few people to go to Vegas and not bet any money on anything), but this place was huge. Room after room of people betting on all sorts of events from cards to horses to roulette to cricket to football to – well, you get the idea. Fascinating for a while, but the desperation hangs heavy in the air, and we needed to get out. We found another tram, the 96, which took us back to St Kilda and while I rested my knee, which had now started to throb and puff up, Chelle went to do some washing at a launderette down the road. More difficult than it should have been, she got back 2 hours later looking like she had been out with her mum for a while (only kidding Anne!), and needed resting before doing anything else.

Still, we now had a whole pile of clean clothes to choose from, and we chose carefully before going down to Aclund Street to find some noodles. The place we found was closing, at 9.30pm, but let us in. Excellent noodles, excellent rice and back to the hostel by 10.30pm, where we sat and caught up on emails for an hour while listening to the increasingly bad chat up lines from the Irish lads in the hostel, which fought with the increasingly bad, and very loud dance music coming from the bar. Maybe it just seemed that way, but there can’t be many 18 – 21 year old blokes left in Ireland, as they all seem to be in the Base Hostel in St Kilda.

We go to our ‘luxury’ room on the 2nd floor and Chelle falls asleep almost instantly while I watch the Bhagdadis v. Saffin match from the Open on the telly, turning it up to compete with the bar downstairs. I finally fall asleep to the sound of a room full of Irish boys singing ‘YMCA’. At least I can tick that off my ‘must do’ list now.

Surprisingly we are both quite spritely in the morning, but Chelle is more spritely than ‘others’ and goes out for a run. We’re packed and out of the room at 10.00am to meet Fiona outside with our bags, to move to hers for a night. We go to Café Brewhaha – which is next to the vegan restaurant ‘Lentil as Anything’ (one for Kilbey there) - for scrambled eggs and lattes, we meet Fiona’s actor friend Daniel who co-owns the place and then we go for a drive.

Fiona gives us the grand tour of Melbourne districts, including Pahran, Toorak, Richmond, Smith Street, and Fitzroy, where we stop off in Brunswick Street, famous for it’s coffee, and have green tea. She has stuff to do so drops us off at the Victoria Market, which is full of Aussie tat, beautiful looking veggies and fruit, and stalls selling leather look goods. We catch a tram back into the city and go to Federation Square before looking around the exhibitions at the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image), spot a really old Mac Plus in a store window, and walk down to the Yarra river, where we sit and have a drink as people drift by to and from the tennis going on just down the road.

Another tram ride back to Fiona’s, where we all get ready and walk down to the Pelican Bar on Fitzroy Street (confusingly, not in the district of Fitzroy, but in St Kilda) and meet two more of Fiona’s actor friends, Josh (more Woody Allen than Woody Allen), and Andrew (an Aussie Pierce Brosnan). They are both excellent people and we talk over the hub-bub of the bar before heading to another place up the road called Mink. Josh goes home and leaves the four of us wanting coffee as we leave the bar at 2.30am. Coffee is hard to find so we go back to Fiona’s flat for a brew and carry on talking, and talking, and talking and it’s 5.00am before we grudgingly give in, and Andrew calls a cab. We sleep in Fiona’s bed, she borrows her neighbour’s spare room.

Remarkably, we’re up, showered, packed, out the door and on a tram by 10.00am, and picking up our car in the city by 11. We pick up our bags and Fiona, and have a last coffee round the corner before heading off over the West Gate Bridge, and away from Melbourne.

Everyone had told us that we would ‘love’ Melbourne, so it was inevitable that it couldn’t quite live up to all that expectation. The tour with Fiona helped, because we realised that the city has an ‘energy’, and a buzz about it. It’s more villagy and less international than Sydney, and I think it’s worth another visit. Or two. Maybe three…