Well I finally cleared immigration and we were back in Australia. Time to travel the country. I was excited to be in Melbourne as we had originally planned to spend 6 months here and 6 months in Sydney before we decided to end our Australian experience after 7 months. Yet first we had a lot of shit to do. I had locked my bank account when in New Zealand and couldn't unlock it because you need to know the exact amount you used on a transaction. This would be hard because we were in New Zealand. My last transaction was to withdraw money in New Zealand dollars. Without my online banking, which I couldn't access, how the hell was I supposed to know how much that works out in Australian dollars. Even the woman on the phone was sympathetic. So I went to NAB in St Kilda and unlocked it. Following that I had to go and post my application for a new passport to the UK as I would need it in time for when we got to Perth in order to leave. Only this has not arrived in the UK yet 2 weeks later and I am getting a little stressed about it. Will have to call them tonight to try and chase this up as I could be trapped here if it doesn't get processed. More hassle to deal with. Cannelle had to go and scan her French driving license as we needed someone to do a translation in order to rent a car in Australia. Oh the joys. The never ending admin trail of travelling. We also had to speak to the French embassy about getting a new passport, which they couldn't do there and it was not even certain if they would be able to do one. Useless morons. Will see later on. Finally we had to go and see the tax office about getting our tax back, where a rude cocksucker of a man told us that even if we counted as residents according to the tax offices own system he thinks no backpackers are ever tax residents and effectively that we could go and fuck ourselves. Pleasant. He also said that the tax office wa starting to crack down on foreigners getting their tax back. This prompted us to look around for some agents who would get it back for us and so far we have been told that one tax claim was filed for for me for $2850 and for Cannelle for $3500. Lets hope we get this tax as it should come in 8-10 weeks. If I don't get my passport in time we may work in Perth for a bit as will have one month left on the visa and it will be a new tax year. We have been back and forth about Australia and what to do here as well. We decided early on that we would skip Queensland. Most Aussies seem to have a low opinion of it and it seems to be just about beaches and parties. The only areas that really interested us were the Whitsundays (which Babou had said were average and just beaches), the rainforests around Cairns (expensive to get to) and the Barrier Reef (which people had told us you need to use a 5 day liveaboard to get to the interesting parts). We wouldn't be able to get to Mungo either (too far) and probably couldn't afford the West coast. Would still leave us seeing most of the rest of the country. Should be good and enough.
Anyway back to Melbourne. We had high expectations coming to Melbourne. After all it was considered the great rival to Sydney. We have spent 4 nights there and alongside the admin shit we got to take a good look around. Its a lot less pretty than Sydney and doesn't seem to have much more nightlife to compensate, but I think this side of the World is sorely lacking in nightlife. It probably has a better arts scene though. The river running through the middle gives it an undeniably more European feel. St Kilda seems funky and the blue penguins (which we went to see twice) are super cute and we finally got to see them after missing them everywhere in New Zealand. The downtown has some pretty architecture along the river and around the university there are some funky buildings. The cafe street culture is seriously overplayed and bears a very limited resemblance to Europe, while the graffitti walls are similar to ones we had down in St Peters. I would even go so far to say that there doesn't seem to be a big difference between Melbourne and Sydney. Both much of a muchness. Sydney is prettier, has better weather and beaches, while Melbourne probably has a better cultural life. I would pick Sydney as I think its more Australian. Also Melbourne is full of pretentious people. We were there for a few days and especially around Fitzroy we met a lot of downright rude and pretentious people. From people blocking doorways, being super arrogant in claiming tables or bollocking their 8 year old kid for losing a race and making them watch it with running commentary as to why they are useless. Everyone seems super up their arse about cafes, food, coffee etc. We never experienced this once in Sydney in 7 months. I would say Sydney has a lot of superficial people (especially in the Northern and Eastern suburbs) but the pretentious people definitely live in Melbourne. We went to the art gallery and other than that we just wandered around. We are heading back there when we finish in Tasmania to spend a couple of days before heading upwards towards Alice Springs.
With Cannelle now happy to drive we picked up a car from the Eastern suburbs and drove it off to Wilsons Promontory. Its an easy enough 220km drive and gave Cannelle time to get used to driving again. I had been excited to come here for the wombats and the rest of the wildlife. Its definitely a ruggedly beautiful park. Just on the drive in we saw emus and kangaroos. People who say you can't see Australian wildlife in the wild have obviously never looked hard enough. The first night in the campsite we saw loads of wombats. They are so cute. We had come for them and there were so many and they were obviously used to people as they weren't bothered by us. We also saw some possums and a fox. We even saw the shadow of a possum creep past when we were in our tent. It was a bit cold camping there.
In the morning we did the climb up the near mountain which affords great views over the park. There are beautiful little beaches, some impressive sand dunes and lots of short walks around the park. In the morning while walking back from the beach we saw our first wallaby. It bounced right past us and then stayed for a while. I think wallabies are cuter than kangaroos. They are really beautiful with the slight reddish colour. We saw more emus, kangaroos and a wombat in the wild. It is a beautiful coastal park. They have a lot of great parks in Australia. Its a great place and absolutely essential if you want to see Australian wildlife and combine it with some great scenery. We saw wombats galore in the evening again and thoroughly enjoyed the time before driving back towards Melbourne the next day to cross it for the Great Ocean Road.
I promised a brief highlight of Sydney. We had a nice time there for 7 months. While the city lacks in culture and nightlife, the beaches of Manly, Bondi and Coogee are really nice. The Manly-Spit Junction and Bondi-Coogee walks are both great. Newtown, Glebe and Marrickville are probably the coolest neighbourhoods to hang out in. The coastal walk of Royal National Park is stunning. The landscape diversity is truly impressive and we saw and echidna there as well. The Blue Mountains are also really nice. Not as nice as Royal National Park but still worth a visit.
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