We spent the last few months of our time in Melbourne in St Kilda, a beach-side suburb in the south of the city. It’s traditionally pretty backpack-ery so I hadn’t expected to like it. I was wrong!

We were lucky enough to find an apartment right across the road from the beach just in time for the Australian summer. Admittedly, St Kilda beach itself isn’t a patch on Sydney’s, but it’s pretty darn good considering how close to the city it is. The beaches just a little further out along the coast, like Elwood, Brighton and Half Moon Bay, are all beautiful and made for excellent weekend jaunts. After work each day, it felt so good taking the tram out of the busy city centre down towards the beach. We could feel our shoulders relaxing the closer we got towards the sea.

Evening walks to Elwood Beach

“Our” beach

We took full advantage of our sea-side location for evening runs and early morning exercise sessions. The views out to sea and multi-coloured hot air balloons in the sky made for a much nicer location than the gym! Many a Saturday morning was spent sampling brunch in the various cafes of St Kilda and neighbouring Balaclava and we quickly became experts on where the best happy hour was to be had on various days of the week. We spent many enjoyable weekends with our new “European friends” (as we called them), Eva, Craig, Heleen and Alex – picnicking in parks, dining at our various houses, and generally exploring the city together. It was so good to have friends again!

Rooftop pool fun with the Europeans

My parents had generously bought us tickets to the Australian Open for Pete’s birthday. We were lucky enough to see Nadal, resplendent in bright pink shorts, win his first match of the tournament and Anna Ivanovic, No.1 seed, get knocked out (not literally). Two great matches and not too much grunting from the lady tennis players which is always good!

Nadal!

Pete’s at the Australian Open!

Our friend Dave and his posse from Hamilton came to Melbourne for a week for a friend’s wedding. It was great to see a friendly face and to hear some good Glasgae accents – and the accompanying banter! During summer, Queen Victoria Market in the north of the city puts on a fantastic night market so we wasted no time in whisking our friends there to enjoy the multitude of delicious food from the just about every corner of the globe. We enjoyed showing them around the city, pretending like we were locals who had a clue and we were sad to see them go.

Pete has some distant “rellies” (as the Ozzies call them) in Geelong, which is about an hour outside of Melbourne. We could hardly fly all the way over to Australia without visiting family so down we headed one sunny Sunday afternoon to meet Alison, Pete’s Papa’s cousin. We arrived at Alison’s to what we thought would be a quiet lunch with Alison and her daughters. Instead, we were greeted with about twenty relatives from four generations who had gone out of their way to rearrange plans and come down to Geelong to meet their long lost cousins. Everyone had brought a dish so there was a wonderful spread for lunch. We had a lovely afternoon getting to know Alison and her family and talking about family history. It felt so nice to be in a proper home and to be taken care of after months of travelling and rented accommodation. Before we left, Alison showered us with thoughtful handmade gifts both for us and for Pete’s family back home. Such a lovely day with wonderful, welcoming people.

Meeting the rellies

Pete, being a big Formula 1 fan, insisted that we get tickets for the Australian Grand Prix when it came to town. The circuit in Albert Park was walking distance from our apartment so Pete moved his early morning runs there to watch the circuit being painstakingly built over the weeks in the lead up to the big event. When race day came, Pete had us at the circuit hours before the start time to secure the spot he had identified as having the best vantage point. Luckily, there was lots to keep us entertained – local bands, motorbike stunt displays, jet flyovers and, eh, tree felling competitions. There was a great atmosphere in the crowd, which is just as well as it was a fairly unexciting race with Lewis Hamilton winning yet again. The highlight of the day was however yet to come – Arnie doing the winner’s interview on the podium! Very surreal.

Arnie and Lewis – best winner’s interview ever.

F1’s biggest fan

On our last weekend in Melbourne, we headed down the coast to the famous Great Ocean Road which is just a couple of hours from the city. The road stretches about 200km along the rugged coast and was hand built by men coming home from World War 1. It is home to ‘The Twelve Apostles’, a set of giant limestone columns jutting out of the sea. There are actually only seven or so of them now due to erosion, and apparently there never was twelve to begin with, but the name stuck! The whole drive is spectacular and is interspersed with several pretty little towns including Lorne, where we stayed the night, and Airey’s Inlet (which is home to the lighthouse from ‘Round The Twist’ – my childhood self was pretty excited to see that!) I was blown away by the beauty of the road and the surrounding areas – the cliffs, the pristine beaches, the fantastic walks, the wildlife (we had a close encounter with a Tiger snake) and the little towns.

The Twelve Apostles

Dancing in the sea in Lorne

“Have you ever, ever felt like this?”

Loch Ard Gorge

Before we knew it, our time in Melbourne had come to an end. We packed up our apartment and headed off to the airport with heavy hearts, not least because my hairdresser had accidentally dyed my hair Dame Edna pink! Melbourne had been a rollercoaster ride for both of us with lots of highs as well as a few lows – setting up a new life in a foreign city is definitely character building! We had grown to love Melbourne and we were sad to say goodbye. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, we had the trip of a lifetime to look forward to. Next stop, New Zealand!