Last Day in St. Kilda

Today is my final day in St. Kilda as tomorrow morning I travel across the Tasman to old New Zealand. The last weekend has been good too. Drunken shenanigans on Friday night after getting my new camera,
First up, here's a drizzly day camera test

And here's what happens when the Sun goes down...

Saturday was my penultimate day at the butcher's, and thanks to a tad too much wine I was hanging. That was about it for Saturday, I did also get my New Zealand working holiday visa emailed to me, which is pretty important as I wouldn't have got too far into New Zealand without it.

Free accommodation?

Sunday was my last day at the butcher's. Nothing special really, just the odd joke about New Zealand being in a different time zone... called 1994. But I'll find out about that tomorrow evening. Today I went out in the drizzle fo shizzle and took a few last photos of what has been home for the past couple of months.

What the hell kind of statue is that?

And now I'm packed and ready to get my New Zealand on! I have still been in contact with the farm supervising job that still seems a bit weird, so soon I will find out if that was a load of bollocks or the luckiest job offer ever.

Now I'm going to continue blogging on my New Zealand blog... here

So don't forget to keep an eye on that.

Anzac Day

Yesterday was Anzac day. I got the tram up to the shrine to have a look at the parade for a bit, because parades tend to get boring after a while.

 And it was raining.

Then I walked into Melbourne, but a lot of places were shut because of the public holiday so I couldn't ask many shops if they have any jobs going. Yes, that's right, I'm looking for a job again. I walked back to the shrine after a while in the city, just in time to hear the last post.

Then it was time for me to get the tram back to St.Kilda where I would meet a few of my fellow hostelers. A pretty good night, with a lot of beer, a free meal at a place called Base and more beer. There are quite a few long termers here which is good as I'm probably going to be here for a few months as soon as I get as job, which will hopefully be soon as today I handed out a load of CVs to some shops and found out about a website for labourers.

Now, I'm going to try and shake this hangover.

No More Spud Packing

Today was my last day packing spuds at Gregory’s, although I only spent half the day packing spuds, the other half was spent shovelling wet mud and rotten potatoes from the floor around the old washer to make way for the new washer. The smell was strong and the mud was in great quantity so after 4 hours of that I was more than ready to say goodbye and get back to Poverty Peak for the last ride on my bike.

Not to be confused with the wrestling move, which doesn’t feature a bike. 

It wasn’t a bad job, packing spuds. Yes it got kind of boring sometimes but work is work and wages are wages and now I have a small buffer to keep me going when I get back to Melbourne after Tassie and possibly look for a job or look into moving west. But I’m not one to look too far into the future as doing so means one will always miss the present, which all too soon will become the past. My trip to Tassie is something I fully intend on relishing. All the campsites are booked, the camper van and Spirit of Tasmania were booked weeks ago and on Monday evening I shall be floating across the Bass Straight to Tasmania, which I am looking forward to immensely now I know there is an arcade on board,

Something that the Titanic was lacking, hence why all the young men were drawing naked pictures of Kate Winslet.

BUT THAT'S THE ONLY PART WORTH MAKING 3D!

That’s all the ‘news’ for today. Thursday I had the day off which meant a chance to spend the whole day in Ballarat, which I did. Here’s a bunch of photos of the various things I saw around Lake Wendouree as I whiled away the hours by the water side. I also had an ice cream.

I told you I had ice cream.

All very nice and I’m kind of pleased I’ve been to the town that effectively brought democracy to Victoria, but I won’t write all that here so here’s a link about the Eureka Stockade if you are interested in the tale of a bunch of miners sticking it to ‘the man’.

PS. I learned an AFL rule. If the ball hits the post it only counts as a ‘behind’ (1 point) even if it ricochets in for a goal (which would be 6 points, but it doesn’t count because it hit the post), I think?

PPS. Melbourne Demons are a crap team, at least judging by the game against Richmond that is on at the moment. Final score, Richmond 133 – 74 Melbourne... Ouch.

PPPS. Last night I watched an entire episode of Snog Marry Avoid, a show I would usually mark as ‘trash’ but when 10,000 miles away from the country it is set in I can’t help but feel a little nostalgia towards the regional accents.

And regional boobs

Goodnight everybody!

Expensive Easter

So it's Easter, which means a few days off and maybe some chocolate. I was once happy to receive these gifts but at the moment I really want to save as much money as possible and having two days off has cost me $200, plus I've lost a bit of weight with all the cycling and that, so chocolate is something that isn't as important as I once thought.

Thursday I went to the market at Footscray because there was a problem with the date tags on the Aldi bags. Ati, Alan and I cruised down the road and in no time we were in the suburb of Footscray. A multicultural hub that was also known for having a problem with drugs and general unpleasant doings, not a place that is mentioned on the tourist maps.

To the wholesale market, just in time to see everybody packing up as we re-tagged the Aldi bags before picking up a free watermelon and flying back up the free-way to Millbrook. A nice break from the norm and  a good deal of time spent doing nothing, which is what I would be doing for the rest of the Easter weekend.

Putting the loss of earnings aside I decided to spend my Good Friday killing time by riding my bike to a nearby body of water of which I know not the name, but it is by a pine forest, if that helps.
I turned off the road and down the bank to head under the train tracks, past the graffiti and dirty water to look upon an area of outstanding tranquillity.

Trains...

Profanes...

And garbage. (Couldn't think of a third rhyme)

Suddenly, none of the above.

I ditched the bike in some bushes and walked for a bit to found a distinct lack of anything. Normally I would assume there would be loads of things to photograph in a forest, but aside from the odd small bird and toadstool there was very little that caught my eye. The floor was a blanket of needles covering every inch of the ground and with it removing the chance for anything else to grow.

Except this guy.

I continued to follow the river downstream where it began to open out into more of a lake and now away from the road and train tracks there was barely a sound. The trees cracked as the wind tilted their heads and the water's movement was like a blanket of silk rippling in one direction. Two swans made their decent to glide past my vantage point and head upstream and it wasn't long before I headed in the same direction.

Not before a quick photo though

And another.

Back upstream I happened upon this little fellow warming in the sun 

And with that I lifted my bike from the bushes and rode back to Poverty Peak. The wind had picked up now and was against me and had invited a cloud of rain to follow me. Fortunately the rain was polite enough to wait until I was inside the house before falling towards me. And that was that, so before ending this blog post here's a picture of a pony, I call her Dumpy, because she looks a bit, well, dumpy.

HURR DURR!

She'd probably make a good sidekick in a family adventure, so here you go Hollywood, my idea for a family adventure in which an Englishman and a pony have to stop a drug cartel from transporting drugs in kangaroo pouches...

Pony and the Pom
(This is the scene when the duo reunite to take down the bad  guys after they reconcile their differences. It happens about 20 minutes near the end)

Instant $100,000,000 box office opening weekend smash!