Around Melbourne with Meegan

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Trip Start Aug 27, 2007 Previous
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  Melbourne, Australia
Sunday, January 6, 2008

Last stop in Australia was Melbourne where I stayed with my friend Meegan. I took another long over night bus to get there and she was there to pick me up bright and early from the bus station. She lives an hour away so we spent the day siteseeing in the city center.  Had some breakfast by the river then went to the tourist information center for some ideas of what we could do.  Decided to pop into the state library first. There was an exhibit of really old books, some as 500 years! There were first editions of Copernicus, Freud, Darwin, Galileo....really interesting!  We went in there to actually see the exhibit on Ned Kelly, Australia's most infamous criminal (think Jesse James like).  They had his homemade armor on display, which he was wearing the day him and his gang was caught.  Next we went to the prison were he was imprisoned and hanged. Each prison cell had pictures and a story of an inmate.  There were too many cells to go through them all and we lost interest pretty quick.  It was a really hot day and our energy and enthusiasm for siteseeing just wasn't up there

Library in Melbourne

!  We went to the casino for me, and had lunch at their buffet, then we just made our way back to her house. 
I met her parents and her brother and they were all very nice and I really appriciate them letting me stay with them!  We are the same age and think the same way about living at home at traveling. Traveling is worth staying at home.  She saves all her money for traveling as well, and has already planned to returned to Africa next summer for another 8 weeks!  Meegan and I went to the movies that night and saw I am Legend, neither of us liked it much! 
Next day we went to a wildlife sanctuary down the road, got to go to the animal hospital and watch a bird under anesthesia get it's wings inspected and x-rayed. Then we went to the main street of town and got and ice cream and walked around.  Went out to dinner with the family at the pub Meegan used to work at.  I wasn't as talkative as i normally would be, I wasn't feeling very good.  They have 2 cats and I'm allergic to some cats, so what I thought was just allergies turned into a cold that lasted about 2 weeks.  I've never been sick so many times as i have in the last few months!
I went on a 2 day trip of the Great Ocean Road while in Melbourne as well.  I felt sick the whole time, but tried to enjoy as much as possible.  The 12 Apostles were beautiful, stupid name though, there aren't 12 of them and it just sounds wierd having religion related names for places in Oz, it's such a nice change to have non-religious names for cities and things. Such as Surfers Paradise, The Gold Coast, Botany Bay.. Lizard Island..  just for some examples.  Anyway, back to the trip.  The driver was really funny and extremely knowledgable about Australia's history and the Aboriginals. I really enjoyed his comentary. When he wasn't talking, he passed the mic around to people who wanted a chance to come up and talk and he asked them to describe their travels and their first kiss of all things

Ned Kelly's armour

! Really good ice break, hilarious.
We stopped several times to get some awesome photos of the coast and the rock formations.  We stayed at a hostel in the Grampians. A forrest area that caught on fire a couple of years ago and is still recovering.  Everyone went on a walk when we arrived, but I went to bed.  In the morning we went on another walk up to a lookout to see the Grampians. We also stopped at a waterfall, but there was no way I could make it up and down 500 or whatever steps I was not feeling good at all.   We went to a family run winery, sampled some wines and looked at the barrels, some of them 150 years old. 
I spent the last night in Melbourne in the city center in a hostel and took the shuttle bus to the airport in the morning.  The driver started chatting to me and asked where I was from, I tell him and he says he has been to California.. I ask where and what was he doing there.. he says his son was over there for 18 months a few years ago, he's was in a band...  oh yeah.. whats the name of it?  Savage Garden... Savage Garden??!!!!  So yeah, this guy seemed normal so I don't think he'd make up a crazy story like that, so I apparently met the father of the dummer of Savage Garden. 
So I was leaving Australia after 5 weeks. I'd already spent half of my New Zealand budget there, so there was no way i could stay longer.   I was freaking out, leaving Australia meant that it was almost the end of my trip, only one more stop to go and it would all be over.  I'm not ready for it to be over. It feels like it flew by. Everything has happend so fast, I know I've done and seen so much, but being constantly on the go my brain hasn't had time to slow down and think about all of it and process it all .  I was stressing, did I accomplish went I set out to do ?  I had some goals for this journey

Me in Ned Kelly's armour

. To find myself, who am I  really, what kind of person am i.... did I accomplish that? Maybe somewhat, but I think we are always constantly growing and changing and we never completely really know who exactly we are if we are continually learning.  I hope that makes sense.  I know what I mean anyway.  I also hoped I would meet someone special, and if that happend I would consider staying in one place for a while longer.  That didn't happen, but I'm ok with that. I did meet some friends who I'll keep in touch with and see again.  And lastly, I had 5 months to think about what direction my life is going, and what exactly to I want to do with it?  Not a day passed by that I didn't worry about this.  I still really don't know.  I have several semi plans.  I obviously want to do something I love, I can't live with a job I'm miserable at and settle for something that I don't enjoy doing.  I want to work in travel/tourism, I have a couple ideas.  I'm just blabbing on now, congratulations if you made it this far, sorry for boring you!  :)

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Melbourne river	Wallaby	View from Meegan's window at work (a winery)	beach
Great Ocean Road	Koala in a tree	Kid in a tree	12 Apostles
Me & the 12 Apostles	The other London Bridge	Lookout at the Grampians	Grampians
Part of waterfall	Tour group

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