MELBOURNE: December 19, 2012 - February 18, 2013
T minus 12 days – the countdown is on for when we start
traveling again!
Melbourne will have been considered home for nearly 9 months
by the time we take off and while it will be a bit sad to say good bye we are
SO looking forward to being on the road again. We mentioned briefly in the last
post that we feel like we are in a limbo stage trying to make a life in
Melbourne while at the same time trying to save for more traveling and then
eventually returning to Calgary to work and establish ourselves again. But now
that the saving has gone quite well the focus is definitely on the travels.
The past couple months have been a lot of fun though and in
amongst working we have enjoyed some annual events Melbourne has had to offer.
Our Christmas holidays were probably the best we could have
had being away from family and friends for the second time. Some people have
asked what Christmas is like down under and if it actually even feels like the
holidays. Gotta say it is very different from Canada without snow and cozying
up by the fire as well as the lack of Christmas carols and programs on tv but
we embraced the Aussie way as much as we could without feeling too homesick.
We had an early Christmas with our flatmates and some friends
which involved delicious crepes for brunch and an afternoon at St. Kilda
beach. The weather was quite nice and we
were able to bring some Christmas cheer to the beach with everyone wearing a
Santa hat or reindeer antlers.
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| Group photo after our crepes (Paul, Jess, Nat, Megan, Helen, and us) |
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| Early Christmas at St. Kilda Beach |
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was a bit quiet in terms of
the number of people compared to our early Christmas but still such a great
time. We had a fusion of English, Canadian and Australian traditions and meals.
For example, our Christmas Eve supper involved ham, scalped potatoes and
brussel sprouts with bacon and water chestnuts. And Christmas Day supper
consisted of roast chicken stuffed with spicy rice and roasted vegetables and an
asparagus, avocado and prawn salad. For dessert the classic pavlova (meringue
type cake) with fresh fruit on top. Both of the days we had our Christmas music
streaming from the internet.
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| Christmas Day morning |
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| Christmas Day supper |
Every Boxing Day in Melbourne there is a cricket test match
so we decided to check it out. This year it was Australia v Sri Lanka. After going to a 20-20 match we thought the test
match would be slightly boring and slow-going in comparison but I think because
of the day and the fact that it’s an annual event, it turned out to be a real
fun atmosphere. The weather was beautiful so that also helped.
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| Panorama of the MCG |
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| I guess the Roughriders aren't the only ones with the watermelon idea... |
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| It's a great day for some cricket! |
New Year’s Eve was spent at our friend Megan’s place as her
and her flatmates were hosting a bbq and a bit of a party. This was the first
time we got to try lamb properly cooked and we can now see why it is so popular
with the Aussies. Although the fireworks would have been better seen at our
place, it was nice to bring in the New Year in good company.
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| Amy, ?, Paul, Nicola, Megan, me, Helen |
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| Happy New Year! |
We made NYE a bit of a tame night because we had plans to go
to a music festival for New Year’s Day. Only having gone to concerts and the
Calgary Folk Festival before, this festival called Summadayze blew us away!
There were 9 stages for the different genres of dance music – house, trance,
electro, etc. Some of the artists we saw
perform that might sound familiar were Kimbra, AC Slater, Fedde La Grand, MIA and Chemical
Brothers. The location was great, just outside the Royal Botanic Gardens, and the
weather was beautiful. The only complaint we can make from the festival is of
me getting food poisoning. I had never had it before by wow, is it awful!
Thankfully I didn’t go back to work until the 7th because I spent
nearly a week recovering from it with the help of antibiotics.
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| Panorama of Summadayze with a focus on the main stage |
The next big event we checked out later in January was the
Australian Open! We opted for some cheaper tickets at the secondary arena but
we still saw some great play. The first match was Legends’ Doubles and it was
actually more of a show than a competition with trick shots, playing with two
balls at once – very entertaining. The second match was Men’s Doubles with the
American Bryan brothers versus a French and Polish couple. The third match we
got to see was Men’s Singles with Nicolas Almagro (ranked 10th) versus
Janko Tipsarevic (8th) – a very competitive match until Tipsarevic
injured his ankle. Outside of the matches there was a lot to see and do around
the venue with sponsor and interactive booths. Overall a great experience!
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| Live site in Southbank |
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| A shot of the grounds with Hisense arena ahead and Rod Laver (main arena) behind |
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| Powerful serve from Tipsarevic |
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| Us in Hisense |
The next weekend we were off to another annual music
festival called Big Day Out which was also Australia Day. With artists like
Against Me, B.O.B, The Killers, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Vampire Weekend, and
Yeah Yeah Yeahs performing how could we NOT go! The festival was set up on the
Flemington Racecourse which is where all the horse races are held, with 6
stages, rides, beer gardens and other smaller stages for karaoke, a Mexican
Wrestling Bar and other quirky side events. Although the weather wasn’t as nice
as we were hoping for it was still a great time. A local hip hop artist, 360,
was probably our favourite performer.
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360 rockin' the Hawaiian shirt...
It's hard to comprehend that patterned button-up tops are worn by most guys here as a popular fashion choice |
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| Apparently RHCP was a highly anticipated performance to see |
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| Shane (Adrian's workmate) and us towards the end of the festival |
Last weekend with the weather being so nice and in need of
some beach time, we took a train and bus to Torquay and Bells Beach, the
birthplace of surfing in Australia and the surf brand Rip Curl. We checked out
the surf museum, had a wander around
some of the surf shop outlets and then attempted to venture to Bells Beach. I
think a lot of other people had the same idea for the day because the taxis
were impossible to catch. So we opted for the local beach which was also nice.
We had already been to Bells Beach during our Great Ocean Road tour but I was
hoping to go again to watch some surfing. But as it was just a day trip we
didn’t really have time to get there and back before our bus came to pick us
up. In the end we were just happy to chill on the beach and wade in the ocean
for a bit before heading back to the city.
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| The beginning of the museum greeted us with the wetsuit worn by Patrick Swayze in "Point Break" |
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Surfboard letters between a surfer and his dad - so funny
Megan came along for the day trip, she's in the background reading |
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| Shaping shop, unfortunately no one was around that day |
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| Surfing apparel heaven |
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| Fisherman's Beach, Torquay |
As for the work side of things that have allowed us to take
part in all of these events… Not only
does Australia celebrate the holiday season differently to us, they also have a
lot more time off during it. Businesses are pretty slow from about a week
before Christmas until the beginning of February really. Which I suppose makes
sense because they have the Christmas holidays but it’s also their summer and
the kids are off from school. So it’s been slower at work for both of us but we
have been able to maintain full time hours. Well until about 2 weeks ago…
While we are thankful for the commonwealth ties and the
opportunity to work in Australia, this working holiday visa has its
limitations. And one of the limitations is you are only able to work with one
employer for a maximum of 6 months during the 1 year visa. If you work longer
than the 6 months, you may face losing your visa and getting kicked out of the
country. Not wanting to risk that for myself and cause any problems for my employer,
we made my last day February 1st. I have been applying for jobs but
since my last day I have only been able to come up with a day’s worth of work
through a temp agency.
Around the same time, there were rumours floating around
Adrian’s workplace about lay-offs because there weren’t any new jobs coming in.
And with no new jobs, they don’t really need any pallet rack installers or
labourers. As Adrian is a casual employee we figured he would be the first to
go. As you can imagine, we were feeling pretty stressed out and frustrated. Thankfully the company Adrian works for has
been able to pick up some bigger jobs just recently so at least he is alright
for work.
But about 10 days ago with things not looking too good
work-wise in addition to getting tired of being in this limbo stage, we felt it
was time to move on and have decided to start traveling again the 2nd
of March. We have booked the first few legs of our travel starting with a 3-day
tour in the Centre (Ayer’s Rock, the Olgas and King’s Canyon), then down to
Adelaide for a long weekend, and across to Sydney. From Sydney we will then
work our way up the East Coast. With the rail pass we have purchased, we have
the opportunity to go to Darwin and the national parks in the Top End as well
as out west to Perth but unfortunately financially it’s not in the cards for us
this time around.
We will end our time in Australia up in Cairns and sometime
during the beginning of April we will fly to SE Asia to continue our travels.
We haven’t come up with any concrete plans for it yet but we are thinking of
starting in Bangkok then heading south to the islands to beach bum. From there
we will either head up north to Chaing Mai for cooking classes, muay thai
boxing and hill tribe treks or head east to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. As we
have about 3 months for SE Asia we are also hoping to get to Indonesia and
possibly the Philippines but at the same time we don’t want to feel too rushed.
So with 2 weeks to go we are just working on getting things
wrapped up here and preparing for living out of our backpacks again for the
next 4 months! As we will not be as settled as we are here, we would love to
plan some Skype dates. Please let us know if you are interested and times that
might work for you. In the meantime, we hope you have enjoyed reading about our
past 2 months’ adventures since we last posted and look forward to more to
come!
