Today marks four months since I arrived in Melbourne and also the first day of my mega-Australia east coast adventure. I woke up at 6am and made some last minute additions to my suitcase before heading to the the tram stop. It was definitely still dark outside and pretty chilly. I waited for about 10 minutes before getting frustrated and began walking with all of my luggage. I know "patience is a virtue" but it didn't seem as if the tram was coming. But of course as soon as I made it about one block one went rattling by. Frustrating. I managed to catch the next one, made it to Melbourne Central and eventually the bus terminal at Southern Cross Station. I checked in and found out that we had assigned seating and that I wasn't in the front; I was in seat 5B, next to a bigger lady who was nice but kind of talked a lot. She informed me that she had been visiting Melbourne and actually lives in Canberra. Her husband died recently and she had just been to visit her daughter.
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| my chariot |
Along the way we stopped a couple of times to let people on and off and once at about 11:30 for a food break. I was definitely the only one to whip food out of my suitcase; everyone else went to the cafe before getting back on the bus for the second half of the trek. The first half went by really quickly, but the second half was slow. I slept, looked out the window (well the part of the window that I could see) and listened to my iPod. It was pretty uneventful and decently enjoyable. Many parts of the drive were like I5 to LA (less cows, more sheep) mixed in with some rolling hills that reminded me of parts of the drive between Stanford and Sacramento.
In any case, I finally made it to Canberra and when the bus door opened, I was shocked by the cold. I'm really glad I have my new white coat with me; it's going to get a lot of wear on the next couple of weeks. Getting off the bus, my first order of business was to find my hostel. I had to ask for directions on three separate occasions but I was finally successful. I checked in and was happy upon arrival in my room. There are 10 beds with a bathroom down the hall. There's also a kitchen downstairs and it was cool to see groups of people cooking there. I didn't bring dinner food with me so I had to make my way to a recommended restaurant, Gus' Cafe. It was a quaint little place with lots of variety on the menu. On the way back to the hostel I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some breakfast food and fruit so that I can make both breakfast and lunch for myself and hopefully save some money.
Now I'm in the lounge watching TV and there is a diverse group of people here. It's only 8pm and I'm already thinking about showering and getting ready for bed. I'm going to wake up, make breakfast and plan my day in Canberra. I'm actually hoping to get up and run first, but I don't know if I'll have the willpower to do that because it's just so cold. On the other hand, I need to be in bathing suit shape by the time I get to Cairns in three weeks or so.
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