Melbourne, Mark and Moving On

Mark, 34, from Adelaide, stands just over a foot taller than me.

Flinders Station near Federation Square. Look at all the people!

Melbourne from the War Memorial

My final train ride across Australia was the Overland Train running from Adelaide to Melbourne in around 12 hours. Alanna was also on the train but sat in a different carriage. By some stroke of luck I ended up in Red Premium and got restaurant service, which was lovely. I sat in my chair waiting for whoever it was that would be put beside me to arrive. And in walked a 6"6' ginger man weeping his little heart out, and plonked himself down next to me. I promptly gave him a hug and tried to talk to him but he continued to sob for a while. He got himself together eventually. Turns out he was 34, had lived in Adelaide his whole life and was moving that very day permanently to Melbourne. So we got chatting and by the end of the trip, him me and Alanna who had joined us from Red Service, were jolly good friends and arranged to meet up before I left Melbourne.

I stayed at Nomads that night but due to its shittyness I moved to Alanna's hostel, Hotel Discovery. On the first day Alanna and I went to the market and bought food for that night, then got on the free bus service and went around Melbourne stopping at the waterfront, the Botanic Gardens and War Memorial. We had to get out in the Arts District and walk home by Federation Square and Swanston Street. I made stir fry for us both but there was a bit of drama as the rest of our food which we were saving for the next night got chucked out by some flashpacking scallywag because they wanted to use the pans. As you can read I'm still not quite over it. I mean, what kind of backpacker chucks food away?

The next day we met up with Mark at Parliament and we walked the mean streets of Melbourne for a few hours and ended up in an "Irish" bar for a pint before saying goodbye forever. Alanna and I went back to the hostel and ate before meeting up with a friend of hers who took a bunch of us to some secret bar thing called Madama Brussels or Bruge or something which had a nice view but was pretty lame due to the amount of yuppies that frequented the place. We had Pimms though, which was lovely.

On my final day I went to the library, had a curry, wandered the city centre, said goodbye to Alanna perhaps for forever, then walked to the station, where I boarded my overnight bus to Sydney.