17th September, 2024
Dearest Friends, Family and Foe; if you follow my photography account, you’ve probably already caught news of my friends’ Alana and Alex’s recent engagement. I was excited to share pictures of said engagement, but I didn’t get around to rattling off the many treats and challenges surrounding the rest of our trip to Melbourne. I thought I might take the time now to rant and rave if you’ll have me for the next few minutes.
The story obviously starts months ago with Alex’s idea to coincide his proposal with their upcoming Melbourne trip – I went over that in my other blog post. But I neglected to mention that Sinead and I had been feigning for a trip to Tasmania for quite a while before this, and at some stage Tasmania wound up being off the cards for us. Nonetheless, we had weeks of university break to fill, and I was excited about the option of going to Melbourne as a replacement trip for the two of us. We have never really been on a journey together, so I was keen to extend this photography job and get Snake on board – because why not? We booked flights, made arrangements and quickly the big day approached.
Friday – All stops to Alana and Alex’s Engagement!
We had the mission of getting from Wollongong to Sydney airport rather early in the morning. This mission became more precarious due to unreliable train lines and track work being done. Luckily, Snake has a certain expertise in the area of public transport. She has a friendly and reliable rapport with replacement busses, trains and trams that became absolutely vital in the execution of this trip. Over the next 4 days, we would board about 16 different transport vessels. To summarise, we got the train from Wollongong to somewhere (I don’t know I just did as I was told), then a big comfy bus with the blinds drawn took us elsewhere, we got an early morning coffee at that said elsewhere, and then we got a train to somewhere else, and then we went to the airport. And then we got on a plane.
We took our time figuring out where we needed to be at the airport, so all went according to plan, because we had decided only the prior afternoon to arrive earlier than absolutely necessary. If we had gotten there with any less than 40 minutes to spare, I’m sure we’d have been just as tired from stress as we were from a 5am start. We got on that plane safe and sound, and upon arriving at Avalon airport, where we hung out for a bit. We had organised to stay with some of my friends from highschool who had moved to Melbourne from Dubbo in passing years. It was such a pleasure to get to catch up with them, and they were kind enough to pick us up from the airport.
We went back to their place and spent some time chatting before heading into the city on the train. Of course, Melbourne has a different train system to Sydney’s. They can’t tap on with their debit cards, and an Opal card was out of the question. They have Myki cards, which they notably “touch” on with. The girls selflessly lent us their Myki cards, but we both ended up getting our own by the end of the trip. We were tickled by the overall vibe of their trains. They seemed quiet and polite, with enormous spaces between the aisles and seats, like a spread out bus. Quite homely, actually, and neat. I said that Melbourne people seemed to always look like they could be cartoon characters – I’m not sure exactly what I meant by that, but I stand by it. Regardless, it was interesting for us.
Alex had said that he was going to propose at a picnic ground in the city, and we headed there as soon as we could to scope out the prettiest spot possible and practice hiding. It was quite the treck, but we wanted to help things go as smoothly as possible. I will not go further into the engagement story, partly because it’s not my story, and partly because I’ve talked about it enough over on Neesh Photography.
Anyway, after doing my best work under pressure, we jumped on a tram and headed back to my friends’ place – but first a trip to the closest McDonalds was in order. We’d forgotten to eat, and I have grown prone to hangriness with age.
Saturday – 4 Girls vs TK Maxx
I was excited to go op shopping in Melbourne, and the girls were keen to take us to TK Maxx and a huge Savers. Snake and I both found handbags at TK Maxx, which is an out of character purchase for both of us, but I am quite enjoying mine. It’s a True Religion beige denim tiny tote style bag, with brown leather straps and a nice long clip on a sling-strap. I have been guilty in passing months of carting around ecosystems of unnecessary items in my tote bag, and it feels nice and more formal to carry less in a smaller bag. I also got some Canterbury shorts for 14 dollars that I am wearing to death lately. They have huge pockets. We went to some Japanese hot-plate spot for lunch. I wish I could remember what it was called so I could describe it better. The food came out on a sizzling plate, which was interesting and tasty.
The girls then took us to a gigantic op shop called Savers. We spent like two hours there, went through the entire shop, and left with a plush toy turtle. Sinead and I saw him and jointly thought, “that’s our baby, obviously”. His name is Mungus, and he’s a good kid so far.
Sunday – Wandering Around, as suggested
Sunday morning we had organised to have hot chocolate with my former housemate and her partner, since they live in Melbourne now! So we took Mungus on the train, observing the police presence at Melbourne train stations. As we were observing, a civilian was fined for not having a Myki card, fortunately I had managed to purchase a Myki card just in time before rushing to catch the train. We got to the city and wound up taking the tram right before a protest was supposed to break out near the library. We tracked our friends down and got our hot choccies and I felt it was a very refreshing and nice time. I’m really glad we got the chance to catch up.
Snake and I didn’t set a particularly tight itinerary before embarking on our trip – we considered some gallery exhibitions, and receive advice to the effect of “just wander around, there’s fun stuff everywhere”. So that’s mostly what we did, and it was very fun. After hot chocolate, we walked to the old treasury building and looked around at some old things and an installation about household objects. On the way, we stopped to look at a fountain, and a water feature, and steal a citrus from a tree. Afterwards, we even got to see the notorious hook turn in action.
We had each set an intention for the day – I wanted to eat a burrata, Snake wanted a bagel and a matcha. Naturally, we spent about an hour in pursuit of my burrata dreams, and came across an A-Frame on the street that read “BAGELS BAGELS BAGELS BAGELS”. When we went inside, there was a sign on the wall indicating that their current special edition bagel was a matcha bagel. This was too great a coincidence to turn away, so we got bagels, and they were delicious. While on the hunt for Burrata, we saw some funny things, popped into venues and giggled a lot – but, of course, we did not find a Burrata. No harm done.
We found ourselves in vicinity to op shops, so of course we explored them, along with a very surprising store we found. I don’t know what it was called, but it had mirror balls of all forms and crazy clothes and a zebra print shark hanging from the ceiling. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon searching for thank you gifts to give our lovely hosts before we headed home the next day. It got cold and dark, so we boarded the train out of the city and observed the residents’ love of football – everyone was dressed up in team colours.
The girls took us for ramen that night. I had never tried ramen, and I regretfully must admit that I wasn’t as fascinated with it as I thought I would be. But Snake and I had some oysters, and that was very interesting. Then we all went home and played a long, beautiful card game. I lost as if my life depended on it. But a good game!
Monday – Home Sweet Home
On Monday morning, we rose once again, and our friends were kind enough to take us to the airport before work. We hung out there for a bit, got a classic Macca’s breakfast, and boarded the plane. There we found a work friend of mine seated in the row behind us. This tickled me greatly. She offered to drive us home once we landed, but we had our hearts set on the beautiful journey of the South Coast Line. It was a lovely train journey as ever, and we both exclaimed how much we love New South Wales and its stinky trains.
In summation, we had a really fun time, and I was excited to spend time with Snake and old friends. I loved seeing my friends get engaged and catching up with everyone. Everyone was so accommodating and the city was wonderful and interesting. A few times, people jokingly asked me if I would consider moving there – and I can confidently say no. As fun as it was, I felt so deeply comforted and calm to come home on a sunny day with my girlfriend in Wollongong, after a weekend of cold days in a new place. I love Wollongong very sincerely. But it was a fruitful and lovely trip.
Thanks for listening!
