Melbourne Monday

So, we had one last full day in Melbourne, and we had many, many plans for it. OK, so the plans weren’t exactly that exciting, but we had a lot to get through and first up was the Queen Victoria Markets, as recommended by Liam on our long drive the day before. It was easy enough to find, just straight down the main road from the Baden Powell hotel. It felt a little bit like Las Vegas with all the road crossings and taking ages to get anywhere you wanted to get to, especially as the police are particularly keen on nabbing people for jay-walking.

Half an hour later we had arrived at the markets, and the building that contained them looked pretty amazing. The thing that didn’t look amazing was the sign advising us that the markets were closed on a Monday. Swing and a miss. With no markets to explore we walked into the town centre to achieve a few more things off our long list of tasks. I had missed breakfast so nipped into a Pie Face shop to grab a very delicious, but very greasy, sausage roll. Sadly, I thought that the one I had got in Cairns was a cool independent bakery, but it turns out that they are basically the Greggs of Australia. But damned tasty though! We saw a post office across the road and poked our heads in to get a quote on sending another parcel back home and ended up grabbing some Singapore dollars as we were unsure if there were any Barclays ATMs at the airport. The quote was as good as we could get so we decided to send it, but had forgotten the DVDs of all our backed-up photos and videos, so I decided I would walk back to the hotel to get them and James would go and get a haircut, as neither of us knew the Malaysian term for “just a trim” so getting one in Oz was probably for the best.

The (closed) Queen Victoria Market

I got back to the hotel and grabbed some food and the DVDs. I met James back in the city centre at 3pm and we got the parcel posted back home, which will probably arrive near enough on Christmas Eve…… which will be nice. Now it was James’s turn to head back to the Baden Powell so we split up and I went trawling the shops for book shops to try and get a second hand copy of a South East Asia Lonely Planet or Rough Guide. I had no luck, as I only found a place selling them for $44 brand new. I walked out in disgust. I managed to locate the Parliament Building in the city centre, after initially walking in the exact opposite direction, which looked pretty grand, but as I was on a tight schedule I had to head for the hotel and rendezvous with James before meeting up with Liam and Harry for evening drinks. A $5 Pizza Hut and a shower later we were walking the familiar walk down to Flinders Street station.

We didn’t have to wait long for our companions to arrive and we were quickly taken to a bar called Ferdydurke……which I have no idea of the meaning. It was a cracking little bar, pricey by our standards, but probably pretty good by the Melbourne going rate. After a glass of wine (Harry) and a jug of beer (me, Liam and James) we wandered out to find the next cool little bar. Unfortunately, it was Monday night and a lot of places seemed to be closed. The next two places fell into this category so we finally found Cookie that was open for business. One thing about the Melbourne bar scene I will remember for a long while is that they seem to be located down the dodgiest alleys in the city, amongst wheelie bins and graffiti.

In Ferdydurke's

Cookie was great too, and Harry particularly enjoyed the shaved almonds in the tapas…… until Liam pointed out that they were actually pieces of garlic. We sank a couple more drinks before saying our final goodbyes and thanked them both for being fantastic hosts. It had been great to see them, but a shame to leave them and get back on the road, and to a new country too. Indeed, a new continent! The walk back to the Baden Powell was a now very familiar one, and a cold one too – I had even got the coat out of the bottom of my bag, something that I thought wouldn’t be needed anymore after New Zealand. Once back at the hotel we began packing our things in readiness for hitting the road again the next day. Oh, and James managed to pinch some towels from the shared bathroom as the hotel had taken our wet towels but not left fresh ones. And due to the Monday Close-down they were unavailable to get some more ones. Tip: Melbourne shuts on Mondays.