Melbourne and the East coast

The blog is back by overwhelming public demand!

I’ve been in Melbourne for a few weeks now so its about time to update you on what its all about and what ive been up too!

Arrived in Melbourne back in April and for the first week or so I stayed with Bonnie and her family whom Id previously met in Western Australia back in the good old Coral bay days!

Spent that week investigating Melbourne and getting my bearings, as I planned to be there for a couple of months at least!

La Trobe St

Central Station

I also needed to look for work so was incredibly lucky when the first job I applied for I got, I sent the e-mail on the Monday afternoon and by Tuesday lunchtime I’d got the job, which was awesome...Had the rest of the week to explore then I was to start the following Monday.

This week was the final week of the Melbourne international comedy festival, so along with Bonnie went to two shows, which were unbelievably funny, the second was so harsh on people in the front row, but I couldn’t stop laughing all night!

We also visited Matt who id met along with Bonnie in Coral Bay who was an English guy living in Perth, but unfortunately he’d been sent back to the UK for work so it was a fleeting visit, 2 nights out with Matt and he was back in the UK…

Towards the end of that week, I moved into a hostel nearer the town centre as this was closer to the office, hoping this would help me find a place to stay on a more permanent basis and meet some more traveling kids in the city!

So I had one week in the hostel which was cool, nice place great people, but being in a dorm was annoying while getting up for work in the morning…

St Kilda beach...Melbourne

St Kilda beach front market

I was dead lucky again when I looked into an advert on the net, for a house share, I ended up moving in the day after I looked at the place…as it was pretty much ideal.

The Job.

So the job was going well, for those who care im temping for a e-learning company working with a CMS of Video website working importing metadata and helping the team to get the site live..

That project is almost complete and ill be moving on to another involving compiling a report on user interface use on their e-leaning assets…

Anyway enough of that..

The House

The house is a big, open plan style one story house, (think Carl Kennedy’s house in Neighbors)

And there are 6 of us, who share the place, Auriel a French guy, Anders is Danish, then Kay and Sharm are Aussie’s…plus little Elvis the dog…and myself!

the gang - Martin Sharm, Me, Kay, Elvis and Aurel

Kannara, Kay and Sharm

We have a really good time in the house, and it’s really sociable which is exactly what I was looking for; the last thing I wanted was a flat for one or sharing with some grumpy hermit…

Elvis takes Kannara for a walk

Carlton Park

Football

Also been involved in a football team, which is cool to be back playing, played a few matches of 11 a side for JFG FC, and hopefully ill be back there this weekend!

Melbourne!

Melbourne has so much to shout about, it’s a great looking city, and looks very different to Perth, as its much older so it has a lot of character, and reminds me of different places when catch it at different times,

Cliché time…but being on the South-bank at night you could be in London, Walking through the tree lined streets in the morning past the Towering skyscrapers in rush hour echoes New York

Bourke street

Melbourne at night

Plus the some of the tightly packed side streets packed with continental cafes that spill onto the pavements stir memories of Paris!

Street life

Street scene

There are also seemingly hundreds of restaurants, each seems to be from a different part of the world, this is down to fact that Melbourne is the most composition place ive been to…my favorite at the mo is Saigon Inn, a Vietnamese place near the office.

Martin and Sharm at "Lentil as anything"

Degraves street

And a crazy bar is the Ice Bar, which is minus 15, and everything including the glasses and the bar its self is made of ice…even the furniture!
This is great but very cold…great if you want to be reminded of England’s weather…visited this place with Kannara when she came over for the weekend...she only lasted 10 mins...before she started to frezze over...

Ice Bar with Kannara

Grrrrrr

The Great Ocean Road

on the beach on the Great ocean road

Great Ocean Road

This long weekend we did the “Great Ocean Road” Road trip, drove down with 4 others, it’s basically a really long coastal drive culminating in the ‘Pièce de résistance' which are the 12 apostles, of which only about 6 remain, that are dramatic pieces of the coast that the sea has eaten around, and is slowly eating away at…within a few years to be eroded away completely...

the Gang on the Great Ocean Road

"the twelve apostles" Great ocean road

Elvis

Maroochydore, Australia

The adventure continues.......

Have arrived in Queensland, flew in to Maroochydore from Melbourne, got up late and wash a bit of a dash to the airport, as id been out on the lash with Kay and Sharm the night before…for a few last Melbourne beers !!

But anyway got there in time and a couple of Powerade’s washed away the hangover...

The Sunshine Coast

Mooloolaba beach

I'm staying with my Uncles brother and his family for a couple of days in a place called Twin waters which is where the Queen stayed a coupled of years ago…so if it’s good enough for old Liz then its good enough for me, it’s been really great, have been out to 2 places on the coast in the local area, Mooloolaba and Noosa

Maroochy River at sunset

The first swim in 3 months

Went over to Noosa today with Colin, Ann & Elliott, and had my first swim in the sea for a while, and checked out the Noosa Nt Park…which was all great, was sitting on the beach in my shorts…not bad for the middle of winter.

Main Beach

Colin, Myself & Eliot

The area around here is really tropical, so is really lush and looks great on camera! So theres plently of wildlife, and I saw a Koala up a tree

written by

tomrendell on July 28, 2007 from Maroochydore, Australia

from the travel blog: Melbourne and the East coast

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Fraser Island, Australia

Fraser island is made entirley of sand, and is approx 100 miles long, has over 100 lakes and creeks, the higest concentration in Oz after Tasmania...and are reported to be the cleanest fresh water lakes in the world.

The trip to Fraser island stared at Rainbow beach, a really small town on the coast that has access via a ferry to Fraser island, I chose this over the more commercialised Harvey Bay...

Anyway, basically I arrived on my own and am told to convene in the lounge at 4PM to meet people and attend the 4WD briefing, everyone frantically looks around to form their groups, which will be there Fraser island team for the next few days...I was really lucky and just fell into this group of people that was all sat near by, we quickly realised there were plenty of dodgy chavs kicking about so were keen to avoid being in their group, which turned out to be a good job really but ill get back to that.

Our group of 11 consisted of Andrea & Eva (German) Adelaide (Belgian) Geoffrey & Vincent (French) Martijn & Esther (Dutch) Sinead & Michael (Irish) Dunan (Scotish) and Myself (Australian :-)

The Ferry...

The Gang

Happy to be in a seemingly normal group we saw the other two groups, one looked well dodgy with the biggest bunch of Irish Townie/Dero/Deano/Chavs ive seen in my life!

we have a few beers getting to know each other and sussing out who's driving etc and then early to bed as were off at 7am the next day !

early doors the next day we load up the 4WD Land cruiser (big enough to fit 11) with our bags, booze, tents, food etc and have a briefing from the 4WD company, No going over 60 Kph on the sand, no driving here...blah blah blah!

anyway as we set off at literally 7.45 there is the Chav gang in there 4WD all drinking cans of beer and smoking pot...so we all have a good laugh at them and their inevitable fate...

so we set of on the ferry and are soon on the island, we hit 4WD mode and are on the sand, and with Michael our 4X4 expert we are quickly off to a good start and leave the chavs stuck in the sand and eating our dust !

we start off with a inland track away from the coast line, and head for a walk through the rain forest which was great, the rain forest on Fraser island is amazing as it is the only one in the world that has managed to grow on sand, the whole of the island is nothing but sand, so apparently is a a miracle this has managed to grow, but its there.

Jungle Life

Rain Forest

anyway after that, we riffle through the dense forest on very rough tracks in Low 4, the most effective 4WD setting, it burns the juice and is slow, but gets you through some tricky spots !

this tracks leads us up to 80 meters above sea level, the highest point on the island, and arrive at Lake McKenzie, possibly the most beautiful thing ive ever seen, even managing to beat some of NZ's wonders.

Lake McKenzie

Me and Mike in Lake McKenzie

The lake is 150 square hectares and but is only 5 meters deep, anyway its so amazingly clear and is brilliant for swimming in, so we all jump in to cool off...the lakes are the only plac to swim as the sea has Box Jellyfish and Great White sharks in abundance

That afternoon we drove back down to the beach and decided to camp within a few hundred meters of the ship wreck which lyes in the surf halfway up the island,
so we camped on the beach, and cooked up some food and had a few beers and some good laughs!

after quite a cold night in our dodgy tent ! I got up before dawn to go and photograph the wreck at sunrise, which was well worth it ! as you can see.

Shipwreck at sunrise

breaking through

the next day we visited Eli Creek, which you can jump in and float down to where the water meets the sea ! which is a good way to spend the afternoon

Cruising down Eli Creek

The beast !

We drove up to the top end of the Island and walked to the top of the cliff face, and saw Whales jumping in the sea, they pass this way for the winter migration so it was amazing to see so many jumping out of the sea as they migrated north.

The gang at Indian head

View from Indian Head

we also saw a few dingos hanging around, you are warned several times about the dingos before and during the trip, as they can kill and be aggressive, a couple of years ago they "took" a boy, carried him away and killed him, so you have to be pretty careful.

Dingo

Then it was my time behind the wheel, never driven a 4WD before especially on sand, so was a bit unsure but it turned out to be awesome fun, blasting down the beach what made it even better was having Australia by the Manic street preachers on blasting out the stereo...that song was made for this

we camped again on the beach and finished off the beers under the full moon.

Camping it up

Full Moon Rising

the next day we went to Lake Wabby which is massive hike for what seems like over 45 minutes, over hugh sand dunes, seemingly in the middle of the desert with nothing but sand and the occasional sign post, we all trudged across until magnificent lake Waby appears out of no where ! surrounded by rain forest its like something out of a film...I literally dropped my things on the sand and ran down the sand dunes and dived straight in...pretty cold after walking across the desert dunes...but pretty refreshing, the lake is good enough to drink which was a good job as we'd run out of water

6 am

crossing the desert

Eva and Myself swam across the lake, and most of the others followed, I was blown away by Lake Wabby which i thought was nicer than Lake McKenzie. but sadly its vanishing and in 4 years will have been swallowed up by the advancing sand dunes for ever

Lake Wabby Sand Dunes

Drying off by the lake

After that we had the trip back to the ferry, with all the other 4X4's realising they were running late at the same time, the bottle neck of the southern tip of the island became something out of a wacky races cartoon, everyone trying to take little shortcuts, getting stuck, driving round rocks into the sea...etc...but we made it on to the ferry in time !

Cracked open a beer each as we handed back the 4X4 and settled down for a great night, Free BBQ and Beer all night in the hostel thanks to a mix up

the after party

Pi$ed as.... with Goeffrey and Adelaide

A bit sad next day for the group to break up and head our seperate ways, definitely one of the very best things I've done and one of the very best groups of people I've met!

written by

tomrendell on July 30, 2007 from Fraser Island, Australia

from the travel blog: Melbourne and the East coast

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Cape Tribulation, Australia

5th-12th August

Flew up to Cairns from Brisbane. Arrived late on, had one night in a hostel and caught the bus first thing in the morning, which heads further north into Tropical Queensland, met a few nice people on the bus having a few chats with them all on the way up!

The bus stops to let us on the Daintree River cruise, where we got the chance to see Crocodiles live in the wild, Saw some slither out of the river and onto the banks, we saw the alpha male croc, who was massive, apparently they can both swim and run faster than an Olympic sprinter, so you don’t want to be anywhere near them in the water.

Mossman Gorge

Croc City

Got up to Cape Tribulation, which is basically completely covered in rain forest, the place I was staying PK’s jungle village, is set within the forest and literally meters from the beach!

Met some other people who were on the bus, and who were staying there, went to the beach with them! And then decided to hang out by the pool, after we see signs on the beach warning people about the crocodiles! :-/ (Apparently some drunken Belgian guy swam up the creek off the beach at night and was attacked! So we played it safe.)

Cape Trib

Tiny beware of the Croc sign top left of sand dune

Spent the evening in the bar with some of the girls, Hannah, Kelly and Myra, playing Cards and eating and drinking!!

The next day we had our day on the Great Barrier Reef, went out with Hannah and Kelly, on the Rum Runner it spends about 2 hours heading out towards the reef felt well rough on board, didn’t puke though, unlike a few others!

The great barrier reef

Me on the reef !

Swam on the reef, did a scuba dive in the morning, and went snorkeling in the afternoon, absolutely amazing, saw so much colour in the coral, and saw so many fish, the water is so clear and it all looks great as the sun streams right through to the bottom.

Kelly and Me on the reef

The cape

The Rum Runner

coming into shore

The next day we had a morning horse riding, which was pretty crazy, the guy let us race off on the horses, seemed pretty dodgy at the time, lots of fun though

Kelly was never happy with Silver in Sydney 2002

Me and Han on horseback !

Spent plenty of time, with Kelly and Hannah, playing plenty of cards in the bar each evening.

The Gang: Bazza, Me, Kelly, Hannah, and Myra!

some muppet

Headed back down to Cairns, stopped off on the way at Port Douglas and a few other places.

close to where Steve Irwin copped it !

who are you to me

Kelly and Hannah...SHUT UP

I was staying in a really rowdy hostel and could hardly get any sleep, due to pissed up Scottish backpackers who seemed to have spent their entire trip in a drunken state.

The next day did a daytrip to the Atherton Tableland Mountains, which was excellent, especially as the girls I did Fraser island with were there to also do the day trip.
Swam in some beautiful lakes, rivers and even under the huge Milla Milla waterfall… (that very one used by Peter Andre)

Riding down

Me doing a crazy back flip spin down the falls

Atherton Tablelands

The Atherton Tablelands gang

The Milla Milla Falls

Behind the Milla Milla Falls

Spent my last night with Andrea, Eva, and Adelaide having some beers in town

Andrea, Me, Eva, & Adelaide

When i finally returned to rowdy central! saw the scottish backpackers all still up drinking goon (sh1t wine) thought if you cant beat em...join em...so had a few drinks with them... I Hit the sack about 2am, had to be up at 7 for my flight to Perth Via Aryes Rock so that probably wasnt the best idea!

The trip was a flight to Ayres Rock, 2 hours there then back on a plane and over the rest of Oz, to Perth! pretty cool to see The Rock from the air and the ground!