Melbourne - Day 1

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We had a stressfull morning in front of us today. We had to do the check out in the backpackers hotel before 10 am, we had to talk to the company organising the Tasmanian tour in order to confirm everything, we had to find out where the port was for the ferry to Tasmania and more importantly, we had to buy the tickets for the ferry or we would be missing the excursion tomorrow morning which starts at the port in Devonport (Tasmania).

I didn't sleep much last night and I think it would be good to talk about the different accomodations we've had so far in Australia, it'd be worth a post of its own.

For me the one in Melbourne has been the worst so far and we still have 3 more nights when we come back from Tasmania, much cleaner than the one in Sydney but with 8 people in the room coming in and out all night, the window open because there was no air-con and on top of that the noisier matresses ever! Every time someone turned the other 7 in the room would know about it.

So by 6 am I was up and ready, went to the nearest McDonalds to use their free wifi (I could almost consider McDonalds my blog sponsor. Without their free wifi this blog would not be possible!) :-)
Sorted out the confirmation with the tour operator, did my check out and I asked around for the port for the ferry and how to get there.

I met Aída at 09:000 and We left our luggage at the backpackers hotel and took the tram to the port, once there we sorted out our tickets. Luckily they still had some available. Not being the high season we thoght we wouldn't have any problems and that was the case. They didn't have any special fare for the way in but we managed to get one for the return.

It's Amazing but since the trip to Vietnam now I always ask for special offers, discounts, etc...something I had never done before in the past, all that haggling for days really gets into your head!

Once the stressfull bits were over it was time to relax and enjoy what Melbourne had to offer. It turned out that the port from where the ferry departs is by a beach with a path for cyclists, pedestrians and dog owners with their pets (all propperly signed with all those fancy Australian signs they seem to have everywhere), so we spent the morning walking by the beach following this signed path.

Then we caught the tram back to the centre, had lunch and went to a local park not far from the backpackers hotel were we left the luggage and we just layed there for 3 or 4 hours, sorting pictures on the laptops, listening to the mp3s, chatting and basically relaxing from the stress we had that morning.

When it was time, we went back to the backpakers hotel to pick up our luggage, got onto the tram and made our way to Melbourne Port where the ferry was. We did the check in with plenty of time to spare and got on the ferry with plenty of time.

Security was a bit over the top really, just in front of us there was this old lady with a small suitcase, the kind you take as hand luggage into a plain and have wheels. She really struggled to move due to her age and despite of this the security guard didn't hesitate to ask her whether she was concealing a fire arm in her luggage (I don't think she had the strength to hold a gun, seriously), the old lady raised an eyebrow probabably surprised by the question and after the obvious negative answer the next question really got to her...do you have any diving gear in your luggage? (it really was a very small suitcase) the rest of the passangers on the queue couldn't hold the laughter anymore!

I have to give some credit to the security guard...he asked his questions without cracking a smile...I wouldn't have been able to do it!

and with that we got to the ferry and went to our allocated seats. They were called ocean chairs which esentially were reclinable chairs. It was an overnight crossing to Tasmania so we would be sleeping on this "Ocean chairs".

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