Backpack around Oz

G’day.

Taken upon arrival into Melbourne

Cathay Pacific, what an airline! Not only was the food good but more importantly plentiful, but they have the most amazing staff. Sorry Shoups but Emirates will have a lot to live up to. For starters, a vey kind flight attendant could not do enough to ensure that Neil and I were able to play our Pro Evo and Rugby games. Fair enough the power socket on our initial seats did not work, but they arranged for us to move to one that did. The added bonus was that we now found ourselves in an emergency exit row, which resulted in shed loads more legroom too! Now how many people can say they have played Pro Evo cruising at 35000ft and in such comfort too. This made it into the most enjoyable flight I think I have been on.

Why the hell did I write that first paragraph?  I was in Hong Kong airport, the flight had been awesome, then we managed to get out into the city during our 7 hour stopover and had felt the thrill and excitement of Hong Kong. I must have been buzzing on adrenaline. I got my comeuppance on the flight to Melbourne. For starters it wasn’t a direct flight, we flew to Adelaide first. No one had told me about this. Secondly, the plane was full, the cabin crew crap and bloody rude and the leg room non existant. I got what i deserved for raving about an airline.

Neil and I surpringly enough got through customs with no bother. This is despite Neil’s nasty cough and the fact I normally get harassed. There is however something strange about a person in authority calling you mate, but the guys obviously were my mates as soon as I realised they were letting me in. Melbourne is an amazing place and we were lucky to arrive on the Melbourne cup carnival week. There is an electric buzz around the place and all the ladies look fabulous dressed up to the nines. As Neil said, they will never look as good again till their wedding day. We have been walking the streets and seeing the sights. It truly is a beautiful city. The architecture is incredibly diverse and some of the buildings are truly magnificent.
We have happily engaged in Australian culture. We have had numerous ‘pots’ (basically a half pint to make sure the beer stays cold), been to the casino (all Aussies love to bet on anything) and had some delicious food from around the world. Australia really is a melting pot and we have taken full advantage. We have ventured into Chinatown for Chinese and Thai food, had massive BBQ ribs and fries in an Aussie pub, and of course munched at McDonalds. I love their MacDonalds, it tastes so much better than any other I have been to, and it is made with 97% Australian ingredients so technically it is Australian cuisine.
However, where we have thus far failed, is engaging in proper backpacker activities. We have already needed to book into a 4* hotel just so that we could relax and chill. This was only our 3rd night. We conned ourselves into thinking this was due to a combination of jet lag and youth hostels being fully booked up, but really we just wanted to experience comfort and being able to boast that we backpack in style.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our first few days in Melbourne and have been amazed by how easy life is. We have found a job at a vineyard to which we will go to on Friday. We have bought our mobile phone and Internet dongle for surfing on the move (told you we backpack in style) and our starting to feel very settled. We have been to the MCG and walked the city and been charmed by the friendly nature of people. Walk down the street and start arguing over how to find where you want to go to and you can be assured a friendly face will point you in the right direcion. This place has all the benefits of America and Britain combined without the downsides. I think I may have found my spiritual home. The only thing left to do is open a bank account, sign up to Medicare and sort out our tax number. Nothing really that important! We would have done it today vut its a bank holiday due to the Melbourne Cup! I love this country, who the hell has a bank holiday specifically for a sporting event? Its Neils Birthday tomorrow so we are going to party it up tonight. Will let you know how that goes.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Backpacking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.