Adventure-ers: A Taste of Melbourne

12/12/11 – Dawn Princess Cruise Ship

Today we boarded the Dawn Princess cruise ship to sail around the south east coast of Australia from Sydney to Melbourne (pronounced Melbun). Yes, the typical way to make this trip would be a quick, easy flight, but why would we pass up an opportunity to cruise? There just so happened to be a 2-day cruise from Sydney to Melbourne as a repositioning to start a New Zealand cruise. We hopped on this excellent opportunity immediately, packed up a suitcase full of luggage to leave in Melbourne, and were ready for another adventure.

Of course we were greeted by a grey rainy day for our sail away. Out of our four cruising experiences in and out of Sydney Harbour, we have only had one beautiful sail away, the rest rainy and dark. Just our luck, today was no exception.

This did not put a damper on our moods because after boarding the Dawn Princess, we were shown to our upgraded room on the Baja deck WITH A BALCONY! We do not have to be cooped up inside of the dark hole for this quick cruise, but instead get to enjoy hearing the waves crashing against the ship all day and all night! Our luck has finally turned.

12/13/11 – At Sea

Tonight Tommy finally got the “White Christmas” he has been waiting for. Yes, it snowed aboard the Sea Princess. Okay, it was fake, but better than nothing right!
At dinner we sat at a shared table in the dining room, and ended up sitting with a bunch of characters. The biggest hoot was the gay couple that continued to get more hammered as the night went on. At the end of a dinner filled with uncontrollable laughter, one of the guys gave Tommy a huge kiss on the cheek, a bigger kiss than I got! Lets just say it was quite the interesting night with Tommy the heartbreaker.

12/14/11 – Melbourne, Australia

I woke up to see the full moon highlighting the coastline of Melbourne. As we sailed into Melbourne Harbour, the sun rose over the city, allowing us to catch our first glimpses of our new home. Although beautiful, it is definitely no Sydney Harbour with the gorgeous beaches and the iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

We were picked up by Cathy King, a connection of Tommy’s, who was absolutely lovely, pointing out places of interest along the drive back to her home in Hawthorn. (We are staying with the King Family for our week in Melbourne) Cathy drove around Carey so that I could get my first look at the place I would be living and teaching at for the next year. Conveniently, the King’s house is only a 15 minute walk (2 minute drive) from Carey, giving my mom a bit of peace of mind that we have a great family close by. At the King’s beautiful Victorian style house, we met Cathy’s husband Jim and their daughter Justine. Justine is actually 24, which was great to have someone in the area our age!

12/15/11 – Melbourne, Australia

We spent our morning walking for hours through Carey and all the surrounding areas to get a good feel of our future home. Carey is located in Kew, right next to Hawthorn, and is only a 20-minute tram or train ride into the city. What they call trams is more what we would consider a fast trolly that runs on the street along side the cars serving as a great form of transportation all throughout the city. Kew and Hawthorn are two of the wealthier suburbs in Melbourne, filled with streets full of cute cafes and shops. We absolutely fell in love with the area after wandering through its nooks and crannies.

After our hours of walking, Tommy and I were feeling a bit thirsty, and wanted to try out Cathy’s favorite coffee café called Axil. Because it was a hot day, Tommy and I both ordered iced coffees and were beyond shocked when the bill turned out to be $12 for just the two iced coffees! Well we soon found out why… As I slurped all the liquid out of my big cup, I was confused why all the liquid was gone while the cup still felt half full. After popping the top the $6 charge became clear as I peered down at the two scoops of ice cream sitting at the bottom. Australian iced coffee does not consist of any ice, but instead they substitute ice cream…I am liking this!

Tonight we went to the Soup Kitchen to help out Cathy, a organization set up to help provide and deliver food to the poorer areas in Melbourne. This was a really great and eye-opening experience, allowing us to see another side of Australia. Poverty and drugs left many people around the city in need of help to get by, so we spent the night delivering food to people all throughout the area as well as providing company and a listening ear.

12/16 – Melbourne, Australia

Today Tommy and I took the train into the city to explore the heart of Melbourne. We took the train to Federation Square, a great stop to get off at, welcoming us to an area filled with museums, cafés, shops, and the MCG (big rugby arena) and Botanical Gardens just off to the side. We decided to start with the gardens, and walked down along the Yara river across the bridge over to explore the beautiful gardens. The waterfront was filled with cute cafés and a trendy mall, with the city painted across the sky above as a gorgeous backdrop. It is so neat to find these botanical gardens in the middle of these great cities to escape the fast paced busy life even if just for a few minutes. It is similar to Central Park in New York, somewhere you can get lost in and completely forget that you are in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. After walking through the gardens, we stopped at a Riverland for lunch, a great restaurant right on the river packed with people trying to get a seat. Melbourne was such a neat city to explore through, giving us the sense that we were not actually in a big city but instead in a quaint town because of all the back ally streets filled with lovely cafés and trendy boutiques. Some allies we stumbled upon were covered in beautiful graffiti creating almost an outdoor art museum. Although we have been bummed out about the lack of beautiful beaches, we both agreed that this is one amazing city, one of our favorites in the world.

The King’s belong to Royal Melbourne, the best golf course in Australia and one of the top ranked in the world, so I was obviously expecting for Tommy to be talking A LOT of golf with Jim and Cathy, but this was an understatement… After dinner tonight full of golf chatter that flew straight over my golf-ignorant head, Tommy and Jim disappeared for a half an hour. When I finally went in search, I was not surprised to find the two of them putting in the hallway together exchanging different golf techniques. What I was not expecting was to be put on the spot to show off my putting skills, resulting in a full on golf lesson from both Jim and Tommy. I am proud to say that after acquiring my new putting skills I happily beat Tommy in a putting competition! No big deal.

12/17 – Melbourne, Australia

Today seemed like a good day to try out the famous Melbourne tram system. Our destination for today was St. Kilda, Melbourne’s beach, and after today I am not sure I can even call it that… We hopped on the tram only to jump back off 3 stops later when we found out that the only way to pay was with coins, so inconvenient! So we quickly ran into a café, ordered a coffee, and used the change to finally begin our tram trip down to St. Kilda. This was a great way for us to see many different suburbs of Melbourne on the 30-minute ride down to the beach.

The beach town of St. Kilda was great, with a main street filled with beach boutiques and great restaurants, but the beach itself was a bit different. The only beaches within the city area are inside Melbourne Harbour, creating a very mediocre harbor beach. I would rather drive an hour and a half outside the city to the Great Ocean Road to go to the beach then come sit at the fly infested harbor beach. This is definitely the one negative to Melbourne compared to Sydney, no beautiful beach at our backdoor!

12/18 – Melbourne, Australia

I finally met my boss today who I have been emailing with since early June! It was good to finally put a face to the name. Manny met me at the Carey School to let me into the house I would be living in for the next year. This was after I drove there in Cathy’s big lexus SUV…yes I drove in Australia on the wrong side of the road as well as the wrong side of the car! I was surprised at how comfortable I felt doing everything on the opposite side, and had no problem and quite enjoyed driving in Australia! Anyways, I brought a huge suitcase full of two-thirds of my clothes to leave in Melbourne to make my final move from Sydney to Melbourne a lot easier. Lugging two huge bags, a duffel and a backpack through the city, across the ferry, and down blocks upon blocks was enough the one time, so I was happy to be getting rid of half my load! I was very gracious to be let into my future house to leave my belongings for the month. I was not as happy with what I found inside the house…

Below is the email I immediately sent to my family after seeing the house:

Hello from Melbourne,

Tonight I was supposed to be spending my first night in my new house at Carey, but I decided that sleeping in the comfort of a nice home would be much more preferable than sleeping in the hot, ant/cockroach infested house with rooms reminiscent of old, dirty dorm rooms. It is a great location right at the back of campus with a security guard who is always around patrolling 6 nights of the week, but it was worse than I expected. Cathy let us borrow her car to drive my bags over to Carey, my first time driving in Australia :) (it was not bad at all, felt totally natural and I had no problema!). Tommy was more comfortable with me driving as I had an easier time feeling natural driving on the wrong side of the car and the street and truly it felt easy and normal, I guess I am meant to live in this country! Manny met us to give me the keys to open up the gates and get into the house, and he left them with me so that when I return in January I can move in at whatever time and convenience. Manny was really nice and he was not used to how mature and comfortable I was being on my own. I think this position will be a great experience for me but it is a position that is usually filled by a 17 or 18 year old between high school and university so I am very advanced for the position. Manny said usually he has to help the GAP placement move in and feel comfortable, and he was not used to how independent I was and basically said that I was making his life really easy. I did ask if Tommy was able to use the spare room and he said most likely not but he was free to visit during the day, and would find out if it would be acceptable for him to stay over some nights. That being said, Tommy was thrilled he cannot rent a room because he said he would not pay to live in a place like that... yes it is that gross. Luckily I am not one to back away from a challenge or gross, adventurous situation, so after Manny left us to settle in, I had Tommy helping me move around all the furniture from room to room creating the most ideal room possible for me. I chose the room at the front of the house because it has the most light, a big couch along the wall, and a great view of the city from my big window. If you walk or drive to Carey from the King's house (the family we are staying with), you go up a small incline/hill and Carey is right on the corner at the top, and that elevation gives a great view of the city, one that I am able to enjoy from my front corner room. So, as I said, we moved around all the best furniture pieces to create the best room possible for me to live in eventually, and then got the heck out of there to the comfort of the King's lovely home.

Cathy and Jim have been so over the top nice and accommodating, we truly lucked out staying with such generous people. Tomorrow we may go with Cathy down to the King's beach house to help her get it ready for the holidays depending on the weather. It has been beautiful the whole time we have been in Melbourne, but tomorrow there may be some rain...hopefully not! I am now meeting with Manny, Phillip, etc. on Tuesday to learn and see more of Carey and allow some of my bosses/co-workers put a face to my name. After meeting with everybody for 2 hours, Manny will drive us to the airport so that we can catch our flight back to Sydney.

The King's have two boys (age 26 and 27) who live in Tamarama in Sydney (between Coogee and Bondi), and a 24-year-old daughter who works in Melbourne and still lives at home. She is really great and someone I think I will be good friends with here. She took us out last night with her friends and we met a bunch of new people at an awesome bar, so have sort have already started a life here in Melbourne! It has been a really great trip and we cannot wait to move out here! Melbourne is a great city.

Love you all!

xoxo,

Kaitlin

12/19 – Melbourne, Australia

We drove out to Lorne with Cathy today where the King’s have a beach house. Lorne is 2 hours away from Hawthorn and one of the many beautiful beaches along the Great Ocean Road. We were really happy to tag along for the day because we had been looking forward to taking a trip down the Great Ocean Road. We stopped at Bells Beach along the way, the start of the Great Ocean Road, and enjoyed the beautiful coastal drive down to Lorne (pronounced Lawn). After helping Cathy set up for Christmas at the families beach house, we headed back to meet Ralph and Barb Ward-Ambler (Tommy’s family friends from Melbourne) in the city, but not before stopping to watch hundreds of wild kangaroos lounging on a nearby golf course (our first kangaroo spotting in the wild)! We also saw some kookaburra sitting in the gum trees, but unfortunately did not spot a koala.

Dinner with Ralph and Barb was amazing. Their apartment has huge windows around the entire place opening up to beautiful views of the botanical garden, city and suburbs of Melbourne. We were spoiled rotten with a delicious dinner and incredible wine. This whole week has been spoiling us from staying with the King’s to dinner with the Ward-Ambler’s, it is going to be hard to go back to reality in Sydney!

12/20 – Melbourne, Australia

I met all of my co-workers and bosses at Carey today. I met with Manny in the morning to tour the entire campus and learn about the different schools (primary school, middle school and upper school). It is such a great campus and seems like a job I am going to absolutely love and excel at. Because I am more qualified than their typical GAP placement, they are taking advantage, which will provide me with some amazing opportunities. I could not be more excited to start in late January after finding out how amazing the people are and the opportunities that I have already been offered. Through Carey’s “Outdoor Education” program, I will get to see more of Australia, and have already put my name down to go along on the Darwin trip where we stay with an aboriginal group. Immediately after I arrive in Melbourne, I am heading out for a three-day trip to Geelong, a beach on the Great Ocean Road, to participate in a swimming team bonding experience. How can I not be excited!? After a wonderful morning at Carey, Tommy and I caught our flight back to Sydney, an easy hour-long flight that ended with amazing views flying in across all of the beaches in between Palm Beach and Manly, as well as stunning views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Although we have been hit with bad luck sailing in and out of Sydney Harbour, we had great luck flying in on this beautiful day with the best views of Sydney!