Melbourne

I really enjoyed my stay in Melbourne the city is very cool! Its like a blend of Soho, Shoreditch, Manchester's Northern Quarter and San Francisco all in one. The city has lots of small lanes with cool shops, eateries and loads of graffiti (some areas are designated for this). A free walking tour from the hostel allowed me to get my bearings of the city quickly and i was soon getting around with ease. The main form of public transport are trams which i used to explore St Kilda. St Kilda is Melbourne's beach area and it was very picturesque with its large beach and lighthouse situated on the headland.

Federation Square is the focal point of the city and sits opposite Flinders Street station and hugs the Yarra River. The only productive day was spent in the ACMI (Australian Center for the Moving Image) which documents the history of film and media through the ages. The free exhibition was pretty cool and had lots of interactive areas with retro video games and TV shows. The paid exhibition focused on importance of costumes within the movie world. My favorite part of this was the display centered around Robert de Niro as they had costumes on display from Casino and Goodfellas.

Most of time was spent in the hostel bar where i met loads of welsh people (seriously there cannot be anybody in Wales ATM). Friday night was spent in the hostel bar taking advantage of the happy hour before heading to a pub in Fed Square then i had the pleasure of pulling my trump card which certainly impressed my new found welsh friends. Basically i had a Facebook invite to a club night which upon entry if you had the correct password you could buy beers for $1.... Guess who had the password yours truly!!! So Friday evening was spent dancing the night away in some small club full of "cool" kids and me and my new rugby buddies!!! Ahahaaha a brilliant night was had by all. Special thanks to Emelyne who i met in Thailand who sorted me out with the password.

The day of the test was spent with Phil and Adam (Trentham Rugby Club Friend) who both had tickets for the game. Adam had kindly agreed to bring me some warm clothes from the UK. Special thank you to Adam for this i know it would have been a complete ball ache!!! THANK YOU. We again ventured to St Kilda and had lunch before heading back into Melbourne for the game where i had agreed to meet a friend from back homes Sister and her Aussy Partner Chris we shared a few beers and banter before walking to the ground.

My seats were on the front row and the steward would not let me hang my flag up and viewing the game was also hard work but the atmosphere was electric... the stadium roof was closed for the game and this definaltly helped towards the atmosphere, shame the game was terrible! (I will upload pics from the 2nd test on a new blog entry).

After the mad weekend i basically had a chilled few days to save money for Sydney and look for jobs to try and boost the traveling monies for New Zealand. But i did manage to have a browse around Carlton and Fitzroy again all very cool areas where you are surrounded by fashionista's and blokes riding folding bikes!

Pics FYI.