Cruisers, trams, showers and bedding

The title of this blog, I can imagine, will sound very odd to the inexperienced, however, do not fear, I plan to explain all...

Yesterday was a fantastic day, in fact, our best so far. We woke up with a rather large 'to do' list, comprising of all the things we needed to get for our camper and the long road trips ahead. Included on our list was curtain hooks (a few missing!), a kettle, pillow cases, bed sheets, knives, tin mugs and plates, potato peeler and most importantly; LONGBOARDS (Aussies call them 'cruisers').

We looked in a few shops in St Kilda for longboards but Luke had something a little more specific in mind so we decided to head into the centre, where we would also be more likely to encounter the other list items in the process.
Our Myki cards had run out of credit (they're the Melbourne tram equivalent of Oyster cards) so we ended up free-riding in, what do you expect from free-loading travellers, eh!?
Once we got into the centre, we managed to get all the other items on our list, bar the curtain hooks (still looking for those, where the hell sells curtain hooks!?). We then decided to try the surf shops for some cruisers.
A couple of hours later and we had found our new prized possessions! I have a Sector 9 double set up truck system (sorry - won't give a detailed explanation of this today) and Luke has a rather cool eco-friendly Freedom Dolly board, for which we also got some ginormous wheels so it looks a bit like a dragster cruiser now.

We took the boards out after our dinner on the beach (we like our free BBQing dinners on the beach). We skated along the cycle path for ages and enjoyed Melbourne city lights on the horizon in the distance.

Our bed - complete with bedding!

Later that night, we went to sleep on our bed that actually now comes complete with pillows and sheets! Up until now we had been sleeping on our hoodies and using donated blankets. Last night was utterly luxurious.
This morning we decided to venture back into the centre (yup, you guessed it - still free-riding the tram) and use our Fitness First guest voucher that we were kindly donated by one of the backpackers in the hostel (you hold onto this kind of useful stuff when you're travelling). We were rather excited to use our passes with the sole intention of having lengthly hot showers as, rather disgustingly, but perhaps to be a regular ocurrence, we hadn't showered in three days! I am now wonderfully hair free and Luke has also been exercised. Smiles all round. Apart from the poor salesman who tried very hard to get us to purchase their expensive membership, he was probably a little disappointed when we decided to hot-foot it out of there when he went back into his office to get us some more info on current 'deals'. Sorry Dan - we're on a budget!

We're off now to enjoy the rest of our day as the sun is now shining (it was stormy this morning) and we have cruisers to play with.

Turrah x

Autumn in St Kilda

Lots has been going on since my last post!
On Saturday, Luke and I came to St Kilda, a small beachy town on the suburbs of Melbs, to view a campervan (called Autumn, hence the blog title - don't worry, I do know that it's Spring here).
We liked it so much, we came back on Sunday to view it again. On Monday we confirmed that we wanted it, which was very exciting but slightly nerve wracking and yesterday we cleaned it with the current owners (a Spanish girl called Laura and Venezuelan girl called Beatriz, AKA, Bea), bought our stuff over from the hostel and officially moved in!

Autumn (the camper) is a 1989 Nissan Urvan pop-top camper. She's old but in great condition. Recently serviced, the mechanic recommended a few oil leaks be sorted which the current owners have booked in for next Monday. It should be finished on Tuesday, which is when we intend to hit the Great Ocean Road and of course, finalise on payment!

Autumn the Campervan!

After cleaning Autumn and sorting out a few other bits and pieces we met up on the beach with three of our English friends from the hostel. We had a BBQ on the electric BBQs on the beach and drank super sweet wine (the cheapest we could find). The sunset was amazing and we can safely say it's the first time we really felt like we are living the dream out here.
The sunset was beautiful and the white sandy beaches were just a glimpse of what's to come as this was just an outer-city suburb beach.

Luke, Vicky and Dave

We slept in Autumn last night. It was a bit cold as we only had a couple of blankets (we're off to get bedding in a bit) and woke up this morning next to a park where we went to freshen up. We made tea and porridge on our little gas stove which was such a novelty!

Making porridge in the camper

We looked like proper hippies as were a bit disorganised with the morning routine and left going to the toilet a bit late only to rush there in our jammies and jumpers. We'll get the hang of it soon!
We have become scavengers and second hand store hunters. They're the best place for pots and pans, jumpers and plastic containers, not to mention cutlery and curtain hooks!

We're currently logged into the internet at the local library - we get an hour free WIFI a day. Luke is potentially arranging a work meeting for this week. We need to find a carpenter to help us fix the legs under the fold out bed but we may run out of time today. We succeeded in our day's mission of finding a laundrette and will complete our itinerary once we have bought our bedding. I guess carpenter and long boards can wait for tomorrow... We need to get used to having lots of time for these things!

Finding campers

We viewed our first camper today. It was a Mazda E2000 with 330,000km on the clock (Don't worry mums and dads, we didn't buy it)...

The camper interior was great but, confirming our initial impressions, the mileage sure had taken it's toll on the engine.
The owner didn't know where the oil cap was (ha!) and after spending a good 10 minutes trying to start the engine with various 'special' techniques, we were looking at each other trying hard not to laugh!
The gear box was exactly as my dad used to describe; 'A stick in a bucket of worms'. Needless to say, there was another 'special technique' to get the camper in third gear...

We have decided, regretfully (!?), to decline the sale. BUT, we are viewing another tomorrow morning, a Nissan Urvan in very good condition (in the photos on gumtree). We'll find out tomorrow I guess.

We went to Queen Victoria Market this afternoon, a fellow hostel dweller in tow. I have never seen so much MEAT IN MY LIFE!!!! We got some seafood from there and have just finished eating a big seafood stir fry with lots of veggies from the market.

Luke standing next to a cross section of a 650 year old tree

One thing before I sign off tonight... we have discovered tangelos, they're a cross between tangerines and grapefruits and they are delish. Oh and... Melbourne museum was ace. A whole section on genetics (mum you would have loved) and I lost Luke to the nature department for a couple of hours. We saw Pharlap 'The Wonder Horse' too. His actual mounted hide is at the museum and is estimated to last at least 100 years. Kinda gross.

Pharlap The Wonder Horse

Melbourne on foot

Today we walked all over Melbourne.
We started off with a coffee in a really small creperie on Degrave Street where we planned to walk the recommended 'Melbourne on foot' route suggested in the Lonely Planet guide, only to discover that we had covered more than 2/3rds the route last night. So we set off on our own adventure deciding the only way to get to know the city was to get 'lost' in it. To get an idea of what we walked read this post along side a map of Melbourne...

We walked up to Fitzroy via Fitzroy Gardens. There we saw a model Tudor village and a fairy tree, See pic. The park was absolutely stunning and very well kept. There was a conservatory there with a beautiful array of flowers and ponds and a Japanese style bridge through the middle.

We walked the entire length of Fitzroy street, which is similar in ambiance to Camden, only less EMO more hip. At this point i'll mention that the street art here is something else entirely. Forget Banksy. Some of the art here is jaw dropping (see right). From Fitzroy we walked back via Collingwood street where we stumbled upon a nice indoor vintage market called 'Lost & Found' that my brother would have LOVED. We got the address for their sister branch on Lygon street where we were told to get the tram. We had intended on finding a couple of cheapo vintage road bikes for the rest of our journey. After ignoring the locals suggestion of catching a tram, (Why do I always learn the hard way!?) and setting off on foot we found the shop to be rather further away than we had assumed. A good 4/5 miles further away, which, after having covered easily 5 miles already, started to become a massive mission! When we got to 'Lost & Found' they had a perfect bike for me but not for Luke so we left empty handed and succumbed to our grumbling tummies instead.

Currently, Luke is KO'd on the bed (snoring), while I am struggling to keep both eyes open at the same time. Probably a good idea to catch some Zzzs as off to the Museum tomorrow.

Buenas noches.

Melbourne day 1

It's currently 4.00pm here and we're currently sat on my top bunk in our shared hostel room.
It's a 10 person shared dorm. We've already met 5 of the others - a Finnish girl and guy, a local Aussie chap, a fellow pom and a Canadian guy, they're all very friendly.

We are experiencing a crazy form of zombified jet lag. In the last 2 days we've probably had about 6 hours sleep. But that has far from prevented us from having a productive morning...
We arrived here in Melbs at 9.00am where we got on a shuttle bus (Skybus) service to the hostel.
We dumped our bags at reception and took a wander into town to kill some time before check in at 2.00pm. We grabbed a bite to eat from a 7/11 and took a stroll into the centre of town where we got some hot tea (Beacuse it's cold and raining here, not to make you jealous or anything!).
Somehow we managed to end up on the road our Aus bank is on and we popped in to see if we could arrange a meeting for our debit cards to be set up. They ended up sorting everything for us in branch there and then so that's one less thing to do when the jet lag hits tomorrow!

So far we have really enjoyed the atmosphere here. The locals are super friendly and very helpful.
We're off out now to grab some dinner, or breakfast or whatever we're supposed to be eating right now as we're hoping to keep ourselves awake a little longer so we're not up too early tomorrow.
The centre has a really great boho vibe, a bit like Camden but much much busier with cafe upon cafe selling the huuugest muffins you can imagine.  YUM.

Em

Hello from Dubai airport...

It's currently 4:10am (1:10am UK time) and Luke and I are sat outside a Pinkberry cafe having just enjoyed pricey frozen yoghurts with chopped fruit, washed down with the most expensive bottles of evian water the French Alps have ever produced! Still - yum!

Dubai airport is exactly as we were expecting. Somebody told us to expect something similar to Star Wars Shulell City airport, with it's diverse people rushing about the place at top speeds.
Terminal 3 reminds me of Westfields, it's THAT BIG!

Anyway - this was just a quick post to let everyone know our first leg of the journey is complete and was over and done with very quickly. Absolutely nothing to do with the two bottles of red wine we washed our dinners down with. Honest.
Luke managed to get a little shut-eye on the flight toward the end (don't worry boys, there is an open mouthed sleeping Luca photo to follow soon), but I was just too excited!

We're both feeling pretty schleepy now. Our next flight leaves Dubai at 9:35am local time so we're off to find somewhere to rest our heads for a couple of hours.

Before I go - Thank you once again for a fantastic send off, it really started our trip off in the perfect way!

Byesies Em x