I forgot to mention in the last post that me and the Welsh guys I hung out with on NYE also went to Coogee (a suburb of Sydney) to visit a friend of theirs and have a barbeque at the beach + beer of course. Coogee is a damn nice place, nice beach, and a good atmosphere, when we arrived it looked like party central #1 though, so many people. So we buy the stuff needed for the barbeque and get cracking. The boys needed to get back to Sydney to catch a train, but when we got offered to crash on the couches in the hostel where the girl they knew worked, we weren't hard to convince. We headed to the hostel and dropped out stuff off, and hung out there and had a few more beers. After this we headed out again, to the beach, but everything was closed down since it was a Sunday, so we weren't entirely sure what to do. Well that else is there to do then go skinny dipping, the girls idea, we just gladly followed their lead. Anyhow, we get back to the hostel and get the couches in the common room. Mine is like 10cm to be comfortable and we didn't have enough blankets either, but, we got a place to crash who are we to complain. Only annoying thing is that we got woken up at 0700 and pestered with questions like: Who are you? Do you live here? If not you have to pay! You are not allowed to sleep here! So yeah, we said our goodbyes and hightailed out of there for breakfast. Good times!
Melbourne
After the Coogee adventure I just returned to my hostel in Sydney in the morning checked out and headed for the airport. I still hadn't gotten my tickets from the agency though. So I as around waiting to until like 1.5 hours before liftoff, still no tickets. Tried to call them, send them emails, talk to them on facebook, no answer (until later, way later). So I have to buy a ticket on the airport, like 50 bucks more expensive, annoying to say the least. Anyhow, when aboard I get to sit down beside a fellow named Tony, and we started chatting, and suddenly he gets all ecstatic, he leans in and whispers: "We got an Australian superstar on the plane" I look to the business class section and see an elderly gentleman sitting down. It was Barry Humphries famous for his woman character Dame Edna Everidge. Never heard of him/her, I guess I'm too young or he/her isn't that popular outside of Australia. Anyhow, safe and sound on the ground I head over to Laura's place where I was staying for my duration in Melbourne. Laura and her sister Christine are two awesome sisters me and Bendik met while inter-railing in Istanbul back in 2010. And so yeah, pretty awesome seeing them again!
Yeah, as you can see, I'm quite content at the moment. Beer and beautiful women, life is good :)
As good hosts they brought me to all these cool bars all around Melbourne. This one was down a small alley way.
We also went to a marked where they sold a sorts of stuff, food included, so I got myself a crocodile burger with a sausage of Emu on the side, surprisingly good!
Other than that I just went around and explored the city, and the suburb St.Kilda where I stayed, below is some of the stuff I saw.
A tudor house in on of the many gardens in Melbourne.
Yeah, don't know what was happening here, also in one of the gardens.
This is the Shrine of Remembrance in the botanical gardens. It is a war memorial for fallen in WW1 and other conflicts as well, with a museum inside.
The interior.
View of Melbourne from the top of the memorial.
From the crypt, where you can also see all the banners from discontinued companies.
In St.Kilda I walked around a bit as well and found a community garden with some cool stuff!
A scarecrow I'm assuming is trying to look like Ned Kelly (I'll get back to Ned a bit later on).
A pirate ship.
A dinosaur.
AN eagle or a hawk.
Another view.
Down town Melbourne.
We also headed off to the pier in St.Kilda one night to look at the penguins coming in! This was quite cool, but sadly it was to dark to get good footage of the penguins.
View of Melbourne from St.Kilda pier.
The famous Luna park in St.Kilda, over a 100 years old amusement park, not that big, but fun for the kids. The roller coaster encircling the whole area was built in California and shipped over if my memory serves me right.
Oh, I had rain for like 10 minutes!
I also checked out the state library in Melbourne, had a few cool exhibits.
Old atlas
And its description, quite old.
Encyclopedia Britannica.
And its description
This is the study room at the library
And a view from above
Aight, here we go, below is pictures Ned Kelly's armor. He is an Australian folk hero, kinda like a modern day Robin Hood. He broke into banks and destroyed the papers for peoples mortgages etc. making them debt free. In the armor you can see dents after the bullets hitting him while in a firefight with the police.
While exploring Melbourne I also stumbled upon some really cool graffiti alleys.
An artist at work.
The finished piece.
Det er eeeeeeeeeeeeeeg som er Ugleeeeeeeeee!
There were many many more cool pieces and when I came back a few days later there were many new as well.
There were many many more cool pieces and when I came back a few days later there were many new as well.
Pamela doesn't work as a lifeguard anymore apparently.
Saw this hostel in St.Kilda, great name!
Back in Sydney
Back in Sydney i hook up with the Welsh guys again and we go for a Asian dinner, wasabi glaced beef etc. Good stuff, anyhow, their bathroom had like three urinals in 1 square meter, I did not take a picture of this, but I did take a picture of the statue outside.
Yeah I don't know, weird shit.
Can't say I've seen this warning before.
Good to know I guess.
Oh, just want to write a bit short about the hostels I stayed at. It smelled like death incarnate when entering the premises, a moldy cellar smell in the elevator and all the way up the stairs. It was fine in the reception though. The Welsh dudes had warned me about the stench and the bit shady rooms, it did not prepare me for what is to come though.
Please read the rules before continuing on.
Yeah the room had two "permanents" living there, slobs.
Rob just chilling out, one of the Welsh dudes! Notice the woman's purse on the left hand side there.
For the last day in Sydney before taking the bus to Byron Bay, me and Jasper (one of the other Welsh dudes) went to the maritime museum when we stumbled upon the submarine HMAS Onslow (decommissioned in 1999). This we had to check out.
Entry, at the front, don't be claustrophobic.
Torpedo room, six firing tubes.
A torpedo, I think he said they could get 16 of those in there.
Bunk beds, might actually be better than some of the hostels I've been to.
Kithcen
Fire control for the torpedoes.
I don't even.
Engine room.
Breathing gear that connect to their survival suits. One room in the front and back each had these copper tubes providing air like this in case of emergencies.
A small leisure room, I also saw a copy of The Hunt for Red October lying around, gotta love it! :)
Here the was the actual helm, or where the person steered the sub sat. Tight.
Over to the destroyer HMAS Vampire
Yeah I really don't know.
Mess hall, they had their own cafeteria and everything.
Loading mechanism for the main cannon. That shell is huge by the way.
Skippers quaters.
And I guess it's not complete without a bar!
One of the main cannons.
Okies then.
So over to the command center in the ship
Enemy vessel spotted on the horizon! Aye aye skipper, 5 degrees east, full ahead!
Byron Bay
After Sydney, I took an overnight bus to Byron Bay, quite a nice place I must say! Stayed at a cool hostels with a pool and everything, free surf boards etc. This was quite the chill place and I went for a long walk up to the Lighthouse and did two dives at Julian's Rock.
The lighhouse.
The lens of the lighthouse, if you can see chips in the glass, it is from lightning strikes. This whole lens floated on a small pool of mercury, encased in metal though.
Sounds like an awesome beer, from the museum in the lighthouse.
This as well!
Hello from the top of the top of the lighthouse.
Semi dead beetle, shoe for scale, top of lighthouse.
So from the way up to the lighthouse I was in the most eastern part of Australia.
Quite the nice view along the way.
Through a small rain forest on the way back down.
On the main beach during night, these guys showed up. Renting out wireless headphones where you could choose which color (channel) you wanted to listen too, and hence the DJs played different music.
The local lizards at our hostel Django and Larry, they are quite domestic and could be fed. They like bacon apparently!
I taped my whole dive, but at the very end I managed to get a picture of a turtle! :)
Also here's a small video of some of the stuff I saw! Yes, that are sharks.
