Matt Down Under

The first part of my trip was successful, Friday night I arrived in Melbourne and found a place to stay. 

On Wednesday I moved out of my apartment in Hobart — this wouldn’t have been possible without the help of a good friend who not only offered to store all my belongings (everything I didn’t sell or throw away) but also came to the city to pick it up.

This was one of the two big problems I had to solve before going travelling again — the other one was, to have an address that I can use as my place of residence. Modern life isn’t designed around people without an address, you always need one to register your bank accounts, credit cards, superannuation and also to receive mail. Fortunately another friend of mine offered me his address, problem solved. I might have had to register a PO box or something otherwise.

I spent my last night in Hobart at the Pickled Frog hostel, which turned out to be a bit more ‘yuck’ than I was hoping for. Pillows and bedding were disgusting and showed way too much signs of previous usage. There was probably a reason why the bathrooms didn’t have doors but I must have missed it. So far I have tried 4 or 5 different hostels in Hobart, and I couldn’t really recommend any of them. The best is probably still Central City.

On Thursday afternoon I took the Tassielink bus to Devonport, via Launceston. I was a bit worried because I hadn’t booked any accommodation, but there was a hostel called Gingerbread Backpackers right at the ferry terminal and I managed to grab the last available bed. Quite lucky.

Friday morning I walked to the Spirit of Tasmania terminal. Unfortunately the ferry coming from Melbourne had 2h delay, so the 9am ferry didn’t leave until 11.30am. I was impressed, what a huge ship. I was among the first to board and used the opportunity to have a nice quiet breakfast before we set sail.

Later I found a nice window seat on deck 10 next to a power point, so the first couple of hours were really productive, until we hit some rough seas and the boat started to shake a lot. Children stopped playing, people slowly moved to lower decks. Those who stayed showed signs of sickness in their faces. I also started to feel slightly unwell. What made it worse was the cold day with very low temperatures — it slowly got really cold on deck 10 and I found myself hoping the cruise would end rather sooner than later.

A few things were a bit annoying or strange to say the least. The ship was around 3h behind schedule now, but some of the snack bars on board still closed according to their normal schedule, which would have been shortly before arriving in port. Now with the delay of course, when they closed it was about 3h before arriving in port, which left some passengers slightly irritated. Strange understanding of service. At least they decided to offer dinner in the restaurant, due to the delay. The meals were good, but quite expensive.

Another issue occured once we arrived in Port Melbourne. Pickup of my luggage required me to walk through the whole building, ask for directions, leave the building, walk outside only to find some confused guy who was standing around all the luggage that had been dumped on the ground. I showed my two tickets, one for my backpack, one for my camping gas can which I both checked in. He asked me to go through the pile of luggage and search for my backpack, no joke. I found it, but no signs of my gas can. He then advised me to walk around the whole port area, leave it, walk to another gate where the cars were leaving and ask some security guys. More or less by accident I actually found my gas can — in the middle between all the car lanes where cars and trucks were leaving the terminal area, some security dude was handing out the gas cans which had been stored in a separate place it seems. Why the luggage — which had all been checked in together — was handed out in two totally distant separate places, I don’t know. Unprofessional organisation. It’s not like the ferry service only just started last week. The best however was, when I found my gas can among all the others, the security dude asked me for my ‘orange ticket’. Imagine the look on my face, no one ever gave me an orange ticket on check-in. No idea what he was even talking about. He then let me go and I was glad it was over.

After all I think if you have enough time, no problems with sea sickness, no kids who need to be entertained and not the highest expectations on service etc, taking the Spirit is a nice alternative to flying. However a day cruise feels waaaay too long, take the overnight trip instead. The only thing that got me thinking, besides the aforementioned, was the fact that the Spirit is licensed to transport 1.400 passengers (according to a sign at the terminal) but the four available rescue boats didn’t even remotely look like they were able to carry 350 people each. Titanic anyone?

Anyway I was in Melbourne. It felt so good to be back. I decided to walk to my hostel in South Yarra. I totally enjoyed walking along the beach at night before turning towards Albert Park and South Yarra. It was really mild outside.

I think around 10pm I was at my hostel. I just wanted to get some sleep, the boat trip was very tiring.

Saturday I spent the whole day walking around the city, organising a couple of things, checking out the Botanical Garden — which handily is kind of between my hostel and the city, so I can cross it on my way there — and making plans for the next days.

I will probably spend some time in St Kilda tomorrow, and I also want to see an Egyptian exhibition in Melbourne Museum. I might also meet with some recruiters who contacted me recently, even though I don’t have plans to work in Melbourne.