Arriv­ing at night awar­ded Mel­bourne an impress­ive air as we crossed the bay bridge and grav­it­ated toward the bright lights of the CBD.

Our abode here was lux­uri­ous com­pared to the hos­tels we had become accus­tomed to. Susan­nah and Rowan (fam­ily friend) had kindly offered us their spare room for a few days while we explored their home from home. As much a back­pack­ing is the life we chose for now there is noth­ing like the com­forts of home, even if it is not your own. Being sur­roun­ded by the warmth of friends, clean dry warm fresh-smelling fluffy tow­els, soft com­fort­able bed, effi­cient wash­ing machine and deter­gent, homely kit­chen, tele­vi­sion etc and all com­pli­ment­ary too. For us this was heaven! After a deli­cious ‘wel­come’ sup­per, I joke with Susan­nah that their abode would of course be included and scored our rated travel accom­mod­a­tion list on our blog. Obvi­ously  there was noth­ing to con­cern her as their score is a clear 5/5 with the ulti­mate in lux­ury being able to lie-in passed 8am and not have to pack our bags for check out for a few of days. Bliss! Thank you again

 

Susan­nah and Rowan’s lovely St Kilda East home

The weather in Mel­bourne was not in our favour and resembled the gray skies of Lon­don. In fact the river here was remin­is­cent of the River Thames and for us the whole city felt like a mini Lon­don. This was both a plus (it felt very famil­iar) and a minus (it was just all too famil­iar). We joked on our trip that around every city corner there is an EY build­ing and here we found a Nokia Care store too! Both pre­vi­ous clients.

Still, we had a lovely time here vis­it­ing art gal­ler­ies, design and film museums.

The National Gal­lery of Vic­toria was show­ing a truly sen­sa­tional exhib­i­tion called ‘Moon in Reflec­tion’ by Kim Hoa Tram who is a Mel­bourne based Viet­namese born Chinese artist. The exhib­i­tion of large simple art­works, which marry Chinese cal­li­graphy with Chan (Zen) Buddhism to illus­trate the path to enlight­en­ment, are both pro­found and beau­ti­ful. I have sub­sequently bought ‘The Essen­tial Dalai Lama’ which is the first book of his col­lec­ted wis­dom. Buddhism is a way of life I have always wanted to learn about and which has since expan­ded my approach to life. This pur­chase has please J greatly and we now have dis­cus­sions about the Buddhist teach­ing together!

Mel­bourne was a very social spot for us. Kelly (Hay­wood) and her part­ner John have emig­rated recently and we met over drinks and din­ner. Emig­ra­tion seems good for them and they look well on the, usu­ally great, weather and out­doors life­style. I how­ever sense they ques­tion how much the 9–5 is inhib­it­ing their dis­cov­ery of Aus­tralia itself. We hooked up for cof­fee with Frankie & Andy (a fun Eng­lish couple we met in Adelaide) who are trav­el­ling with their delight­ful 2yr old daugh­ter. It was great to see that trav­el­ling with a young chil­dren in not as pro­hib­it­ive and daunt­ing as we had been lead to believe.

Of all the cit­ies in Aus­tralia that we could poten­tially move to, Mel­bourne would be our choice. We love the out­doors life­style coupled with inter­est­ing archi­tec­ture and a vibrant cre­at­ive and cul­tural edge. The sub­urban hous­ing has all the quint­es­sen­tial char­ac­ter that is missed else­where in Aus­tralia. But if we were to emig­rate her I would ask myself if this… “Would it become another Lon­don exper­i­ence on the other side of the world?” Which con­firms the idea that it is not par­tic­u­larly another coun­try we are look­ing for it is another way of life.

Cesca

P.S.

Susan­nah & Rowan: we would both like to thank you for your kind­ness at hav­ing us to stay. Our wel­come was warm and your food deli­cious. Thank you for allow­ing us free reign in your home and for cour­i­er­ing for my belong­ings over. We wish you both well and your sil­ver lin­ing is around the corner.

Kelly & John: It was lovely to catch up after so long. Mel­bourne seems like a great place and ideally suited to you being full of very sporty/arty people. We wish you well with your new job, just don’t get too sucked in! Enjoy the ski­ing and remem­ber there is the whole of Aus­tralia to see and it is so worth­while

Frankie & Andy: Lovely to have caught up in Mel­bourne. Enjoy your trip in Indone­sia. NZ has been a ball so far with mainly blue skies and warm tem­per­at­ures, but nav­ig­at­ing passed the many washouts and potholes can be fun! Hope to see you in SE Asia.

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