Finding my feet

Life in Melbourne so far has been up and down, but luckily the downs have been small and easy to resolve and the ups have been substantial. I suppose it's always difficult settling into a new place, especially when you are on your own, but things have been getting better every day here as I meet more people and get my life more organised. I didn't particularly enjoy my first few days in Melbourne as I was gutted to have to be apart from Chris and the weather was a bit of a come-down after Queensland, to say the least. I was living in a share-house so far in the sticks that lots of Melbournians hadn't heard of the suburb, and I wasn't sure how I would fill the two weeks I had until classes start. Luckily, it has turned out that I had a million and one jobs to do to get myself settled in. Number one on this list was finding a place to live, which proved to be more challenging than I had initially expected. It was a huge relief a few days ago when I confirmed a room in a a lovely apartment close to my campus, and I will be moving in tomorrow. Here in Australia, the week before the start of the semester is called O-Week, or Orientation Week, which is similar to Fresher's Week back home. But us exchange students were required to arrive the week even before this, to have the obligatory welcome talks and enrolment sessions ("Hello possums!", etc.). In the evenings a lot of activities were arranged by the Host Scheme, which is responsible for helping new students settle in. On Thursday evening of my first week I went with them on a bar crawl of all the local drinking holes around Clayton campus (there's two of them). The hosts are all lively Aussies who met through the Host Scheme when they were first-years, and now take on the responsibility of showing the new 'froshies' around, as well as the exchange students. A few of them may have confused these distinct groups a little, and I had to endure a well-meaning local lad explaining drinking games to me.

The following weekend was brilliant and a great introduction to Melbourne. On Friday night I met up with my good friends Cathy, Juliana and Kanav, who are Monash students who did an exchange to Liverpool Uni last year and ended up in the same halls of residence as me. I'd missed them a lot when they left in the summer and I was really excited about catching up with them in Melbourne. The three of them are all in their fifth year of uni, while I am only in my second, and they are busy with part-time jobs, internships and placements, so I was a little worried they wouldn't have much time for catching up. However, we had a great reunion at Flinders Street station which made me feel they were as happy to see me as I was them. They took me to a really cool rooftop bar on Swanston Street where we enjoyed $12 pints, city views, and catching up on their travels in Europe after they left Liverpool. Saturday night was White Night, a big event in the city that drew crowds bigger than even New Year's Eve, according to my Aussie mates. Loads of buildings were lit up with light shows and there was a fireworks display over the Yarra; added to this were street performances and music, which all in all made for a great evening and a very exciting first weekend in Melbs. On Sunday I took part in an event organised by MOVE- the Monash Overseas and Exchange Club, which is a great society with really friendly members who are either international students, students like me who are on exchange from somewhere else, or are Australians who have done an exchange or plan to do one. This obviously makes for a fun and like-minded bunch. The event was a scavenger hunt called the Amazing Race, in which teams of five had to dash round the city following clues to earn stickers. There were ten clues to find in three hours, and prizes to be won for those who arrived before 4pm with the most clues completed. I signed up as an individual but when I arrived I joined a group with a few people I'd met over the week- we were to become 'Team VISA' when we managed to pick up matching blue promotional hats from VISA along the way. Despite an initial setback of arriving at our first clue point 50 minutes before the MOVE rep who was supposed to be meeting us there, we smashed it and came second, simply because we were so keen that we sprinted for the last half an hour and managed to get all ten with two minutes to spare. Our prize was a voucher for unlimited tacos and a free drink at a Mexican restaurant, which we're going to take up when we can arrange a date. Chuffed with our victory and also absolutely exhausted and sweaty, we went out for beer and pizza to round off an action-packed day.

In the evening I moved to a hostel in  St. Kilda, Melbourne's stylish beach suburb. I wanted to have a chance to meet new people and to stay in one of the nicest parts of the city, and it proved to be a great idea as I've really enjoyed my time here and made new friends, including a group of Monash exchange students who have also been staying here while they look for accommodation for the semester. When I first arrived at the hostel, tired and worn out from my busy weekend and carrying all my belongings across the city on public transport, I was gutted to find that the 10-bed female-only dorm I had booked into (for six nights!) was an absolute tip. The only person in there at the time was a backpackahh/working-holiday-visahh girl from London who I talked to for a bit while I tried to find an empty space to put my bags on the ground amongst all the clothes, towels and empty goon boxes exploded across the room. After a slight 'moment' downstairs in the face of this less than appealing prospect, I asked if I could change rooms and without any hassle I was upgraded to a 6-bed girls' dorm with an ensuite bathroom, which was a million times better- and they didn't even charge me an extra to stay there for a week!

It's been a busy week, with O-week at uni every day and events at the hostel most evenings. Most days I went along to the orientation festival to have a look at the clubs on offer (I want to join the photography club) and get a free BBQ lunch, as there is invariably one somewhere to be found. On Wednesday evening I went on a MOVE evening out to Fitzroy, a trendy suburb north of the CBD, for a tapas dinner and expensive drinks on a rooftop bar followed by cheap drinks at a sticky-floored bar. I am starting to find some really nice places in Melbourne, and I am enjoying life here a lot. I feel very lucky to have this opportunity and I'm concious of how quickly the time will go. In the meantime I'm going to try to make the most of every day and try not to turn down any offers of things to do!

With my best Aussies, L-R: Juliana, Cathy, me, Kanav

Team VISA, 2nd place champs of the Amazing Race

Some snaps from White Night

My new city

From the Sunshine Coast to Melbourne

Wow. The past week-and-a-bit has been so busy that I've barely found time to post, and now I am left to recall all of the events since my last post in one go. Chris and I left Brisbane last Sunday morning to head north to the Sunshine Coast to visit some family friends of mine. We had originally planned to stay a few nights but ended up staying for five days, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and a comfortable place to stay, not to mention the free rent and breakfasts and laundry services! The drive is only about an hour and a half but Julia's family were out until the evening and we decided to make a day of it by visiting the beautiful Glasshouse mountains out to the west on our way up. The mountains were formed by volcanic activity, producing numerous peaks in an otherwise flat and forested landscape. Chris has kindly been the driver for all of our trip so far and therefore we followed his kind of schedule, making a stop at an out-of-town discount shopping centre before we left the city. He had climbed one of the mountain peaks before but couldn't exactly remember where it was or what it was called. His preferred approach to things, and with the hindrance of Australia's most unreliable sat-nav, meant we ended up driving around the area for a fair time. We found a helpful tourist information centre which directed us to a nearby lookout point with a nice cafe. We found the cafe halfway up the road; the location was stunning,  with a terrace with views across a grassy plain where kangaroos grazed and out to the Glasshouse mountains and the blue sky beyond. Refreshed with snacks and drinks we headed up to the lookout point, which turned out to be a car park with a viewing platform- "a place for old people", said Chris, who didn't want me to see the view without first having to break sweat so as to better appreciate it. Eventually we found Mount Ngungun, the peak Chris had climbed before. It was a sweaty half hour hike even in the early evening but totally worth it for the beautiful 360 degrees views in the evening light and the calm, serene air.

Views of the Glasshouse Mountains from the Lookout Cafe

We made it to Julia and Mike's house near the seaside resort of Mooloolaba as it got dark (around 6.30pm in Queensland, where daylight saving time isn't used as it is in other Australian cities). It was nice to see them and their daughter Joanna, who I first met when she was two and who is growing up fast in the time since then. We went out for a meal at a local Asian restaurant and chatted and caught up on recent news. At this time, still only a week since our flight, Chris and I tended to get tired very early in the evenings and we appreciated going to sleep in a comfortable bed in a clean room that night after a week of hostelling!

Over the week Chris had to do a couple of day's work, but had a few days off too. His job as a travelling salesman allows him some flexibility in where he works and on which days, which has been ideal to fit around our travelling plans, not to mention having a car to take us around! When he was working I spent some quality time with Julia doing girly things like going to the shops, drinking coffee, having lunch and chatting. She showed me the local seaside towns of Mooloolaba and Maroochydore and we walked along their lovely beaches. She also introduced me to surf clubs, where we stopped for coffees or something to eat. To enter it is necessary to have a membership card, and as Julia's guest I had to sign a visitor's book and was given a paper tag. Inside there is a restaurant, cafe, bar and gambling machines. I was initially confused about surf clubs- most of the punters didn't really look capable of hopping on a surfboard and riding a wave. However, Julia explained that they are not-for-profit organisations that raise funds for local lifeguard training. Outside the surf club at Alex Head, which we visited on Friday, kids in tie-dye t-shirts were practising CPR on lifesaving dolls. Therefore the clubs are a good place to spend your lunch-money, and Julia told me that people are very happy to come here to use the gambling machines- known as pokies- as any losses will be going to a good cause. In any case, gambling is very popular here in Australia.

The lovely Julia at Cotton Tree, Maroochydore

With the Steve Irwin memorial at Mooloolaba

Our favourite place for coffee at Cotton Tree

Amy and Peter- two posing gingers.

On Wednesday and Thursday Chris had time off from work so we could go explore more of the local area together. On Wednesday we went inland to a small hillside town called Maleny, which was recommended to us by the lady at the visitor information centre in the Glasshouse Mountains, who told us it was her favourite place. Well, Maleny turned out to be a new favourite place of Chris, who as a lad from the Colne Valley near Huddersfield loves somewhere small and in the hills. Maleny had a very arty feel, with an abundance of lovely independent cafes, coffee shops, bookshops, an organic grocery and an award-winning dairy ice-cream place. We spent some time looking at the shops and filling our stomachs here. Later we headed out of town along roads that looked out to the Glasshouse Mountains to get to the Mary Cairncross Reserve, an area of preserved rainforest with a board walk route trailing through, which visitors can walk for a small donation to the centre. The walk was very peaceful and incredibly interesting due to the abundance of trees, winding roots and creepers, and plants. We also spotted plenty of pademelons, which are small wallabies. Unfortunately we ended up having a rather too authentic rainforest experience as it started tipping it down when we were halfway through. So it was a rather damp and chilly journey back to Julia's that evening. Just after setting off we had to stop to check the sat-nav and pulled over beside the road. Here Chris felt a pain in his foot and looked down to see blood between two of his toes. Disregarding Julia's advice -and frankly common sense- to wear enclosed footwear for the rainforest walk Chris had rocked up in his thongs/flip-flops and had been driving barefoot. We were taken aback by the blood all over his foot, and soon found the cause when Chris inspected his right thong, where a little leech was curled up in a pool of blood. Needless to say, it was pretty disgusting and horrific, and the offending creature was promptly thrown out of the car window, with the journey completed with Chris driving with a paper napkin between his toes.

Views over the Glasshouse Mountains from the road out of Maleny

A pademelon

In the Mary Cairncross Reserve

The rainforest weather hits

A wild kookaburra

On Thursday we headed to Noosa, an upmarket seaside town and surfing spot a little further north up the Sunshine Coast on a peninsula called Noosa Heads. Chris had spent time here before and it was one of his favourite places until Maleny knocked it from top spot the day before. Still, Noosa is a lovely place with a stylish main street called Hastings Street and a very nice main beach, where we spent a few hours sunbathing and swimming. I was very keen to get in the sea for the first time after arriving in Aus so I was pretty happy! But in the end the part of the day I enjoyed the most was the walk we did afterwards through part of the National Park. I think this is a sign that I am now a grown-up; that I prefer an evening walk with beautiful views to getting sandy hair and salty eyes on the beach. Chris told me that there was a long campaign to preserve this bit of natural forest on the peninsula in opposition to a development proposal to turn the place into a resort. And it is so fortunate that it was preserved, as the coastal walk we did from the main beach around the first stretch of the headland was glorious; the low sun flickered through the forest leaves and reflected across the sea, where surfers were making the most of the last hours of daylight. Every five minutes or so a bare-footed surfer would run past us with a board under their arm- all were barefooted and all were running, so fit and pumped on adrenaline they must have been. We also got to see my first wild koala slumbering in the branches of a tall eucalyptus, although we would never have spotted it if it hadn't been for some European tourists who had stopped in the path to look up at it and take pictures. Chris and I didn't do the full route, much as we would have liked to, but got as far as Hell's Gate, where we admired the views over Alexandria Bay before turning back.

The coastal walk at Noosa Heads

Spot the sleeping koala?

Chris gets his first wash all week

We reach Hells Gate, looking out over Alexandria Bay

We said goodbye to the Sunshine Coast and to Mike, Julia and Joanna on Friday evening, to make our way back to Brisbane. It felt a little sad to leave, but it was also good to be back to the hostel, where the same familiar faces were lounging around as if they'd never moved since we left, which to be honest might easily have been the case. But we didn't hang around for long, because we wanted to make the most of every day we had in Queensland before I set off to Melbourne. Saturday was the nicest day of my trip yet. The two of us drove out east from Brisbane to take a ferry to Stradbroke Island, a sand island of about 250 square kilometres. Only the north of the island can be visited or inhabited, as the south is used for sand mining. The most easterly point of the island is Point Lookout, where there is a gorgeous and peaceful white sanded beach. It was the nicest one I had seen so far and Chris and I spent much relaxed time here. But as at Noosa, the best part of the day was the walk we took after we had had enough of the heavy waves and the hot sun. We climbed some rocks to get over the headland and followed the coastline around for an hour or so in the little time we had left before the last ferry off the island. It was just a magical evening; the beaches were stunning, each one more beautiful the further we walked, and fiery red rocks on the beach complimented the green of the sea, which was clear enough to see straight through. Washed up all along the shore were big blue jellyfish; children were poking them as their parents looked on without any concern- typically relaxed Australian parenting, as it seems. At one point we found a large sandy slope, and I raced Chris up it to check out the view. It's not easy running up sand and I wore myself out, but from the top we could see the sea in three directions and it was exhilarating. Chris and I had fun taking silly pictures of each other running and jumping off the bank, landing in the deep sand, before we ran and jumped down to the bottom again. We spoke to a few people passing as we walked along; all were islanders enjoying their evening walk along the beach, and were without exception really friendly. I wished that we could live there too and not have to get back on the ferry! But of course we had to take the last bus back to the dock. Inadvertently we got off a stop too soon, not realising there were two port terminals. By the time we realised the mistake it was too late to walk but luckily a very kind girl offered us a lift over in her car. The journey only took a few minutes, during which she explained to us that 'Straddie' wasn't really geared up for mass tourism- though they welcomed it, she quickly added- and that the bus driver could be a bit grumpy and wasn't much interested in informing passengers about the two different ferry departure terminals. In any case, we made the last ferry due to her generosity, and watched lovely Stradbroke Island disappear into the night.

Seagulls and surfers on Cylinder Beach

Checking out the jellyfish

More jellyfish-baiting

Straddie at sunset and feeling sad to leave!

Sunday was my last day in Queensland and my last day with Chris for two or three weeks, so we both felt a little down. Determined to fit in a last day of sightseeing, we rather ambitiously set off for Byron Bay, which is a two-hour drive from Brisbane and over the border with New South Wales, which meant that we lost an hour when we went through. Typically, we hadn't set off particularly early and had had to make some stops on the way so we didn't arrive in Byron Bay until about 3pm NSW time. We didn't see much of the hippie-ish town centre and bypassed the beaches, but made our way up to the lighthouse on the headland, which marks the most easterly point of mainland Australia. Of course, there were plenty of tourists up there admiring the sea views, which were almost 270 degrees around. The vastness of the ocean from up there was astounding, but even so Chris and I managed to spot a few swimming rays down below.

Beautiful Byron Bay

Chris chose his outfit especially to match the lighthouse

'Most easterly point of the Australian mainland'- one corner down, three to go

Yesterday I had to take my flight to Melbourne to arrive in time to enrol at Monash, which will be my host university for this semester. I was reluctant to leave, having had such a lovely time in Queensland with Chris. I knew I was going to miss him and I wasn't ready to leave Brissy yet. When I arrived in Melbourne I made my way to the international student desk at international arrivals, where the staff greeted me and gave me an info pack. Here I had arranged a transfer that is organised by Monash, and so I waited with a group of international students after being given a paper tag with my name, flight number and destination written on, presumably in case I wandered off and got lost and needed to be returned. The whole process was a bit of a headache after a long flight, as the busybody in charge with a bluetooth set in his ear didn't think to inform his flock of sheep of what was happening. As new people arrived and registered we waited and chatted and Mr. Busybody occasionally checked our tags and said 'Ok' or 'Ok. Just wait here' and finally 'Oh, you've been waiting a long time'. Eventually my new friends were instructed to leave with the mini-bus driver, but I was to have my own car seeing as I was going so far from the airport! I was a bit disappointed but by the time I was on my way it was a direct transit with my driver, PJ, who had lived in Melbourne for eleven years. At the moment I am staying in a house in Cheltenham, which is pretty far south, far away from uni and even further from the city, while I look for somewhere for Chris and I to live more permanently. I wasn't in the best mood after arriving, worn out from the journey and not too thrilled to be here and to be so far in the sticks. I had also run out of money until some more came through from a bank transfer the next morning, so I was down to my last $15 after paying for and topping up the local travel card, called a Myki. This wasn't really enough money for a food shop so I went to a little Vietnamese restaurant for a large bowl of pho for $9.50, plus as much hot tea as I wanted. This comforted me, and I took my time over the hot bowl of noodle soup, spending a good hour in there as I didn't have much else to do and wanted to finish up the last spoonful. I felt much better after a hot meal but was still disorientated about my new surroundings and that night I woke up a few times in the night and had to remind myself of where I was.

This morning I saw Monash for the first time, and the campus in Clayton is lovely- so leafy and green, with sculptures and water features. And the student union building was great- it even had a post office and a branch of the bank I am using- a lot more facilities than Liverpool's new SU, which the university has just spent millions of pounds rebuilding... I had come for a compulsory Study Abroad and Exchange student welcome/information day, which on the whole was pretty useful and some of it good fun too. I met lots of nice people including lots from the UK- it seems that the University of Liverpool is pretty well represented with at least five of us here. My experiences from the day made me feel better, although I am still looking forward to finding somewhere closer to uni to live so as to avoid the very long and boring commute through the suburbs to get between Cheltenham and Clayton, and also to be able to spend time with other students. The house I am staying in is shared by two blokes in their forties, one of whom I haven't met yet and the other, an Irish guy named Jerry, is very friendly but isn't quite my generation. And also I can't understand a huge amount of what he says to me. So it will be good to be with people my own age again soon. Tomorrow I have another session at the university, and in the evening am going to meet up with one of Chris's friends, who is just at the end of a two week holiday in Melbourne. On Friday I have plans to see my Aussie friends who studied in Liverpool with me last year- I'm very excited about seeing them again.

So a lot has happened and I hope I will have plenty more to keep me busy. Although I'll try not to end up having to write so much in one go again! And finally I'd like to share this little clip that I found when looking through the pictures I took at Byron Bay- it's a new camera and I'm not totally on top of how it works, so I must have accidentally put it into filming mode while I was taking photos! So this is a little snapshot of our day, mostly spent taking it in turns to pose for pictures.