melbourne

I apologise for the layout of this page. This was due to a temperamental computer in a Melbourne internet cafe.

AUGUST

Hello from Melbourne

I hope you are well and are enjoying the last of the summer.� As for me in

India
South-East Asia
Sydney
Brisbane
Childers
Darwin
Melbourne
New Zealand
Hawaii
Vancouver

�mid-winter, I think I need a rest.� I've travelled over 5000km by bus since

II last wrote to you from Darwin in June.� Half a continent has flown by in

the space of six weeks, with many dramatic changes, not least the weather.

Temperatures up in the Northern Territory are still in the low thirties

whereas down here in Melbourne it's nearer fifteen.� The landscape, too, has

altered; no longer the large red nothingness of the north, instead it's

�� greener and more habitable, more European even.

�� The sun tan, which had taken almost half a year to perfect has quickly

�� vanished and I'm left wearing the one long-sleeved jumper that I possess

�� seven days a week and therefore now resemble a tramp.� A pale-faced tramp,

�� at that.� Seven months backpacking is beginning to take its toll on the body

�� and what will be a six-week-long stay in Melbourne has come as a respite.

�� Tiredness creeps in; a legacy of thirty-six-hour bus stints and bland Aussie

�� food.� I went to the Chemist to pick up a pick-me-up or some sort of herbal

�� remedy.� I don't feel any less tired but, funnily enough, my urine has

�� turned an odd flourescent Fairy-Liquid-type colour.� It's probably not a

�� good sign but it sure cleans better than any Toilet Jif I've ever seen.

�� Money-saving plans go to extraordinary lengths.� Our two-day Greyhound

�� journey across the Nullarbor Plain from Perth to Adelaide left at 6.30am.

�� (Nullarbor is Latin for, yes you've guess it!, "no trees".� I was anxious to

�� find out whether this 2500km stretch of desert really did contain "no

�� trees".)� Anyway, we decided not to check into a hostel and instead while

�� away the wee (see above) small hours in everyone's favourite restaurant, a

�� twenty-four-hour McDonalds.� The employees seemed strangely surprised to see

�� customers at two in the morning who weren't either high or deranged (come to

�� think of it, they'd have probably been surprised at two in the afternoon

�� looking at the place.)� It got to the stage that at about 2.30 the security

�� guard / cleaner / old woman with nothing better to do at half two in the

�� morning advised us to sit at the table in the far corner in case "somebody

�� comes in and vomits over you" or "hits you over the back of your head with a

chair.

�� By 6am, after traipsing through the city for three hours with twenty tons on

�� our backs we still hadn't arrived at the Greyhound station and ended up

�� hailing a taxi, thus spending all the money we had saved by not checking in

�� to a hostel in the first place.� Furthermore, I never did find out whether

�� the Nullarbor doesn't really have a single arbor because I slept all the

�� way.

�� The hight light of the Outback was Wittenoom, between Darwin and Perth.

�� Previously a thriving mining town of some twenty thousand residents

�� (including Rolf Harris), the government has tried since the eighties to

�� evacuate the place because cancer-causing asbestos was found all around.

�� After moving away, one in six ex-residents died of cancer and now there are

�� only "about fifteen people left living in Wittenoom" (according to the

�� former postmaster and now owner of the Youth Hostel which hardly anyone

�� except us ever touches with a barge pole.)� Quite how, with so few residents

�� it can only be "about" fifteen, I'm not sure.� You'd have thought that with

�� that small number you could be pretty certain.� It's a very lonely

�� three-hour drive from the next town of any size to this ghost town but it

�� was strangely alluring to see a once busy highstreet grown over with grass,

�� the road signs still intact; rows and rows of former shops boarded up with

�� nothing to sell and no-one to buy; no cars, no people and no water or

�� telephone connections... just tons of asbestos dust which persuaded us to

�� stick around for no more than a couple of days before we got the hell out...

�� This week I have begun the dull task of search for work here in Melbourne so

�� that I can see some more of the world before I return home.� Cecile has gone

�� to Sydney to work for the Olympics but seeing as though the accommodation

�� prices over there have gone through the roof I've decided to plough a lonely

�� furrow here.� Cecile will be working for the Olympics, driving French

�� atheletes back and forth from the French Embassy and the stadium.� All very

�� nice for (a) Cecile and (b) the French atheletes respectively until you find

�� out that (a) she's not getting paid as it's purely voluntary to boost her CV

�� and (b) she's never driven on the left before let alone in the middle of

�� Sydney during the Olympics in a big Australian car.

�� So yes, I've decided to stay in Melbourne for a rest.� And just as I do so I

�� discover that thousands of anarchists from around the world are set to

�� descend on the city for a week or so to do what they did to Seattle a few

�� months ago and� smash the place to pieces during the World Trade Summit.

� ��Well, it looks like I won't be getting much of a rest, then.

Back to Around-the-World Index

Back to Main Index

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws