This morning we woke up early and got all ready and packed in order to start the day with as much time as we could- mostly since we would be leaving for Tasmania that night. We got dressed and went down to the bar on the first floor where they had a continental breakfast of cereals and toast for the hostel guests. We ate as much as we could and then checked out.
view from the hostel room
our room
We hoped on the tram again and got off at Southern Cross Station where we were able to buy a locker for our larger backpack and my duffle bag. That way we only had the small backpack with the essentials for the day. Then we were off!
button hill :)
We walked around for a bit and headed toward the bay area (Dockland on the map). We were ok with just wandering and getting a bit lost because the city is easier to navigate than Sydney: the streets all run perpendicular.
tried to get the duck in the picture
After that we walked back through up to Queen Victoria Market. It’s a very popular flea market in Melbourne and I thought it’d be cool to check out. We walked around a bit and looked at things but there was no point in buying anything. So we checked out the birds at a pet store stand and had some sushi.
As we left I found a fish store that we wandered into and checked out all the fish and reptiles for a bit.
We walked down to Flinders Street where I had a store I wanted us to stop at but we had a bit of trouble finding it.
We found ANZ Goliath National Bank... just stumbled on it. Is a historic bank and we had wanted to see it. this is it's ceiling.
I found the door, but it was locked. So I walked up to the store above it and the man at the counter was the brother of the guy’s store I had wanted us to get into. He said he’d open the store later for us if we came back.
the free tram that goes around the city
So we headed over to Federation Square and looked around for a bit where there was some entertainment going on.
the art district
We then walked to the Royal botanical gardens (down on St. Kilda Road on the map).
black swam and babies
trying to pet eh babies without being attacked
We stayed there for a bit and then stopped at the Shrine of Remembrance which is a shrine dedicated to those who served in WWI.
Then we walked back up to Flinders street and went to the store that I had researched for Anthony. It was a little record store of many local and famous artists. They had a stage in the store that I read many local bands come and just play during store hours. It had a great vibe and the brother of the owner was telling us all about how much his brother loves music and the store’s history. Anthony was very happy I had planned a trip for him to go to a record store: right up his alley and definitely a good surprise.
We walked around for a bit more, but the sun was going
down and it was getting pretty chilly. So we went and got dinner at a place
called Nando’s (apparently a thing down here but I had never heard of it). Once
dinner was done we went to Wolly’s (the supermarket) and got some snacks for
the flight since we would have a long night ahead of us. We got our bags out of
the locker and headed back to the airport on the shuttle. We checked in and
headed through security toward our gate. On the way there, there was a wine
tasting booth and we stopped and tasted some wine from local wineries. The lady
at the booth was very nice. We boarded the flight and got ready to leave for
Tasmania. It finally felt good to be sitting for a long period of time; the day
had consisted of a lot of walking. When we got to Launceston Airport the
airport was so small that we had to get off the plane on a portable staircase. Anthony
and I got into a cab and drove to our hostel in the center of the city. We
arrived after reception had closed, which was good because we really only paid
for one person to be in the bunk room because the website didn’t word itself correctly.
We snuck in past the manager and admired the hostel: it was an old historic
house where a meeting was held that had decided on the founding of Melbourne. We
settled into the room and Anthony decided to run out to the store quickly
because we wouldn’t have much time in the morning before we had to catch a
charter bus to Cradle Mountain. When I was chilling on the bed, the door opened
and someone I had never seen before came in (at first I thought they were the manager
and got really nervous) but he introduced himself as Jordi. He is a student
that came to Melbourne for a few weeks to study English. We were talking when
Anthony came back in. The three of us talked for a while and I took a shower.
We found out that Jordi was heading to Cradle Mountain first thing in the
morning and he had a rental car…. So we asked if we could hitch a ride with
him. He was not the least bit hesitant: his English wasn’t very strong so he
thought we could help him and we had a GPS on Anthony’s phone so it helped not
to have to get maps. We went to sleep soon after, with the feeling that we were
becoming more and more budget restricted, open minded, backpacking college
students.
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