The river Yarra at night

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

"the twelve apostles" Great ocean road

Elvis