Melbourne and onward journey

09.02.2017 - Melbourne

The first full day in Melbourne started with a pancake breakfast.

Afterwards, I went on a free walking tour of Melbourne with my new acquaintances. This tour lasted 2 ½ hours and we learned about the discovery and art scene of Melbourne. At the end of the tour, we could pay the guide whatever amount we felt the tour was worth. During the tour, my small group met another German and we all had lunch together in a small food street, having sandwiches and falafel pitas. Afterwards, we headed back to our hostel, stopping to buy groceries for dinner. We planned to have potatoes with tomatoes and pesto, chicken, and for dessert, fruit salad and a donut.

But the evening was not just spent in the hostel, no, we went as a group of six to the Eureka Skydeck Tower to enjoy the view of the city from the 88th floor, both in daylight and when everything is lit up at night. Very much worth it, I must say. In the hostel, we cooked the aforementioned meal and stayed up late into the night, laughing a lot.

10.02.2017 - Melbourne

Today, the four of us did something great again. But first, I had to go to the laundromat because I ran out of clean clothes. It only took about 1 ½ hours, so there was plenty of time for other activities during the day. But first, in the hostel, we had baguette with various dips for breakfast. Then we set off on foot towards the Little Penguin Colony, making a detour through the botanical garden and along the Yara Diverse. All this walking added up to over 23,000 steps by the evening. We took some beautiful pictures during our hike, such as a jumping picture. That is, a picture of all of us jumping simultaneously in front of a memorial building.

At the beach, there is no guarantee of seeing a penguin, but we were incredibly lucky. We saw a beautiful sunset and even a small penguin with blue eyes. I will share the pictures from this day later, when I receive them from Flo, one of my great new acquaintances, if not friends. We also saw many fat water rats there, eww, not the kind of animals you want to swim with.

Afterwards, Carsten, Flo, Tanja, and I headed back to Europa Melbourne.

Again, we had dinner together. Salad and baguette with hummus dip, accompanied by delicious Somersby Pear Cider. And once again, we stayed up late into the night chatting, knowing that getting more than two hours of sleep was unlikely. But this is all secondary stuff to me when everything else is so great.

When saying goodbye, it was jokingly suggested that I should cancel my tour and join them instead, but unfortunately, it was too late. Otherwise, I would have preferred their company a thousand times over the group tour. We said that I will visit them in Berlin for cheaper beer drinking. And so, the last evening in Melbourne came to an end, and with such wonderful people around, homesickness is completely forgotten.

11.02.2017 - Melbourne to Sydney

Today, after only two hours of sleep, the alarm went off at 04:20 AM and I headed to the Skybus with two backpacks on my shoulders, ultimately reaching the airport. I had to run because I miscalculated the time and distance a bit. But everything worked out, and I was able to drop off my 18kg backpack at Virgin Australia at 06:00 AM. At 07:00 AM, I took off towards Sydney.

In Sydney, I first used the fast airport WiFi to save some photos online before heading to the Travellodge HOTEL. Because I will spend one night in a single room in this hotel, from which my large travel group will start on Sunday. I finally had the time to pack my bag properly. I also went shopping at an Aldi-Süd !!! to have food for the day and breakfast. For lunch, I had microwave rice with tuna and tomato, as I could prepare it in my room.

At 5 PM, I had the first meeting with the travel group, and once again, I had some bad luck, as they all seem to be native English speakers from the UK or Canada, so I am the only German again. It's a bit disappointing, as there are language barriers and we can't have as deep and relaxed conversations as I would sometimes like. But I'll give it my best and try to break down the barriers slowly, so that homesickness doesn't creep in again. Still, it's a shame. I would have really enjoyed having 1-2 Germans in the group.

In the evening, I went for a walk to the Sydney Opera House with two girls from the travel group to have a beer (Summer Ale) underneath it. Then we went back to the hotel, as we are all a bit tired and want to be fit for the start of the adventure. Tomorrow morning, we have to take care of our own breakfast, so I will have a nice fruit salad, although my pocket knife just broke while I was cutting an apple…

That's it for the past few days. See you soon and let me also hear from you.

Best regards, your

Julia (far away)