So, I was due to meet up with Amanda and Rachel again in Melbourne Christchurch to see Rachel and then back to Melbourne with her for the Cup and then back on to Perth
We had arranged to all stay in the same hostel in Melbourne whilst we were all there together….Habitat HQ, one of the top rated hostels on Hostelworld.com. One thing that this experience taught me was just that because it was top rated did not mean it was the right hostel for me, particularly up the typical backpacker route on this side of Australia.
Habitat HQ have a lot of things right so I’m not slating the place by any means, it just wasn’t for me, especially when my friends left and I had a few days there on my own. But firstly, I’ll let you know about what we got up too! So, although I had only been away from everyone for a few days, it was great to see familiar faces again in Melbourne. Monday night was slightly hectic crawling over Melbourne bars to try and meet up with some of Amanda’s friends that we were meeting up with the next day at the Cup. Being slightly sensible (for once) we didn’t have too much of a late night as we had to start pretty early the next day to get to the racecourse for a decent time. Well…..Melbourne Cup morning at the hostel was a very interesting experience. We were staying in a 10 bed dorm and thankfully I think everyone in it was also going to the cup – to such an extent that so many places were booked out we ended up having an extra friend of someone there sleeping on the floor of the dorm as they had no where else to do. Luckily though it basically meant everyone was early to bed. Thankfully we had decided to get up a little on the early side the next day to start getting ourselves all glammed up for a day at the races – lucky because as we were coming out the shower there must have been a queue of about 10 girls waiting to get into the showers! 
After that, well it was a sea of woman elbowing each other out the way to try and do their hair and make up in the bathrooms, I’m sure you can imagine the chaos! Eventually though, we managed to get ourselves ready. Amanda had been told about this “ingenious” idea about hiding a small water bottle full of vodka inside a cut out loaf of bread. Well, I had a loaf of bread but Amanda managed to butcher it so that idea went out the window. We decided to risk it (no outside booze allowed inside the racecourse) and bunged a water bottle of vodka inside a carrier bag containing their extra shoes, wraps, hairspray, make up and the rest hoping we could sneak it in. Anyway running our usual late selves we had to do a pit stop on our way to the races to get ourselves some food to try and be slightly sensible about not drinking all day on an empty stomach – Burger King it was!!!
Thank god, living in London prepared me for the chaos at the main station in Melbourne. We had to queue for 20 minutes or so to get onto the platform before managing to squeeze our way onto the train, then had to tackle attempting to find Amanda’s friends amongst the thousands of people at the ground. We managed it though and made our way to them!
Well, the Melbourne Cup was definitely a fun and interesting experience…….we had the very typical Melbourne weather, one minute sunshine, one minute freezing, one minute pouring down with rain. Placing a bet was doing battle with water soaked and straw laden grass in our sandals and heels. Going to the bar was a 30 minute battle there and back. I didn’t win – I didn’t loose but it was a great experience – would I go again? Possibly if I had a nice box to stand in and someone else was paying J
By the time we got to the end of the day it was all a mess, a few more drinks were had but in the end I retired pretty early.
The next day Rachel Amanda and I headed out for dinner in St Kilda and were going to go back to the hostel for a quiet night, but on our walk back we were confronted with a wall of people from our hostel all on an organised night out to one of the local bars were a free drink was to be head. It was a “bad taste” night so they were all dressed up, erm lovely! However, of course, we decided to turn round and follow them for errr just the one! Hee hee hee.
Rachel departed us to head back to Christchurch and on the Friday I decided to go out sightseeing in Melbourne for the day on my own (Amanda wanted to go shopping instead J ). I headed all over the city and thoroughly enjoyed myself exploring all the central areas, the botanical gardens and the museums. I met Amanda at the end of the day to head to the Rooftop bar to meet another friend of hers for drinks that evening. We wanted to go in search of food so luckily for us he took us to this little bar up a back street that you would never find that was lovely for a few more drinks and some food!Amanda’s friend Laura’s birthday was on the Saturday and she was having a Masquerade party, and her being the lovely person that she was said I was welcome to come along. I managed to find myself a little mask that cost a few bucks from a cheapo shop to wear and Amanda and I headed off. Little did we know she was so lovely as it was free drinks for the first couple of hours – lovely!
The next morning I was feeling pretty delicate and woke up a bit late. I wasn’t sure what Amanda was up to as she had moved herself into her own private room for a few nights for the end of her trip in Melbourne (she’s not a proper backpacker, in a proper sponsored professional job). I woke myself up a bit and called her to find out what she was up to and low and behold she was at her friends Pat’s house round the corner (the one who used to live in the flat we took over in Perth. Well….that was one random Sunday I won’t forget quickly – a bit of a session commenced and well, we’ll leave it at that!
After a few days in Melbourne with Amanda I had blown my budget well and truly so Monday was a well deserved liver and wallet rest. Tuesday – the start of my Great Ocean Road Adventure!!
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