That's Me!bourne

25th October 2007: Reuben Whitehouse and Kate Elliott now find themselves settled into life in Melbourne, Australia. Australia is a country in the Southern Hemisphere where you can get an ice cold beer for the equivalent of 70p (a fact that contributes to it being one of the best places I've ever been). Melbourne is a city in that country where you should not, ever, never, fuck with Yarra Trams (say no more).

A month ago we stepped out of Ben's car (my bro got us to Heathrow from Wiltshire in under an hour, though I feel I may have lost a day of my overall life-span from the experience!) and had a sudden feeling of what the fuck are we doing? owing to the fact that we'd only booked the tickets a week before then and we'd not actually considered much where we were going and just how bloody long that flight was going to be.

Turns out the flight wasn't all that bad; first flight I've ever taken where you get free alcohol whenever you ask for it! Also the food was pretty awesome and there was on-demand video entertainment so I consumed approx. 10 movies and jumped off the plane all square-eyed and buzzing.

2 hours of immigration bull-crap later and we stepped through 2 big metal doors to the cheering, warm, cosy arms of Mr Peter Spinner! Accompanied by his fully awesome cousin, Nell, we had an ice cold can of Bundy Bear in our hands before you could rustle his new hair! They bundled us back to their digs in Brunswick and the drinking began in earnest: within 3 hours of being on the other side of the world we were rather inebriated and listening to some awesome Old Time music at the classest pub I've been to since Nesbitts and it was everything we've been longing for since July! I went to bed that night at 3am, several rums and beers in, feeling great; that is until I laid down and closed my eyes and suddenly felt the weakest and most generally wasted I ever have in my entire life to the point of wondering if I'll make it through to the morning; achievement?!

We spent the following week in a crappy hostel full of people who came to Melbourne to watch TV all day and sharing a room with an old Indian fella who didn't speak much and was in bed by 8pm every night. So we stayed out til 2am every night and Spins introduced us to some of Melbourne's awesome bars where you can get some of that cheap, super-icy-cold beer I mentioned earlier and some of the also to the million-bazillion awesome eateries of every sort that are around the town centre (or 'CBD' as they call it here; GTD in the CBD!).

The second weekend we were here we made an awesome road trip down the Great Ocean Road and went to Bells Beach, Australia (I looked for Bodie for a while but he must never have made it back in the end...) We rocked-up to Torquay looking for somewhere to camp at 11pm on Friday night and there wasn't anywhere except pricey Motels so we spent the money on a slab of beer instead and slept in the cab of Mick The Awesome Yute, instead.

Sleeping in a cab not being the most comfortable thing you can do, and cos it's generally pretty freezing here at the moment, we woke around 6am, chugged the engine to warm us up for a bit and then Pete decided to gun the beast another 45 mins up the coast to an awesome little break at a town called Lorne. On the way we saw some brave locals taking on massive waves breaking over a rocky point/reef and all we could think of was a nice warm Hazelnut Latté and some poached eggs.

We pulled up to the beach front at Lorne and waited for the Cafe's and surf board rental places to open and watched some local Longboarders riding some right-handers that were as clean as any wave I've ever seen; the waves here look like the ones in posters!

Getting up at 6am is a a totally GTD thing to do:
By 10:10am we'd driven 60k's, eaten breakfast, pitched then tent (badly) and had a beer in our hand! We sat around in the tent for an hour like you do when you first pitch a tent for the first time in ages - til the novelty wears off - and then headed back to the beach, picking up a mini-mal and a longboard on the way.

The next hour and a half saw me and Pete surf very chilly but super clean and aggressively dumpy waves. The waves here appear to be much faster than in the UK and France; you pop-up and then shoot along it at 100mph before jumping off before the lip bashes down on your head. It was an awesome surf and super super awesome to be back in the water. I managed get smacked in the face by a wayward longboard (my own) but I also managed to hang on, on a couple of screaming fast waves - the kind which make you wonder just what the heck you think you're trying to do as soon as you drop in. We managed a couple hours before we were too cold in our 3mm suits and no gloves etc. and headed back to the campsite for some of the worst sausages you could ever imagine and the kind of high winds you only get when you're camping for the first time in ages.

We're now settled in a sweet pad with a friendly British musician chap, across from the Botanical Gardens and Kate has to run home afer late shifts at the café incase a Possum jumps out on her!