Melbourne – Part 1: Bubble soccer, bye bye Wallace, Nemo and Dory

Easter Monday, 4pm. I finally found the time to write something about me and my latest miles. Time flies when you’re having fun, they say! Apparently I staid in Sydney for 8 weeks… Time to go then.
878km later, I made it to Melbourne… For free 😉
So far I’ve only seen my hostel and the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, but it has a different atmosphere compared to Sydney. In a positive way!

Wallace

Wallace wouldn’t be Wallace if we didn’t do anything epic in the weekends. For Weiz’ birthday we played bubble soccer!
Bubble soccer is like normal football/soccer but you’re inside a big inflatable ball.
Words are hard to describe the fun of this!
Check the pictures and videos. You’ll understand 😉

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My last days in Sydney were counting, so no departure without a proper bbq.
Australian BBQ: Kangaroo sausages between a slice of bread with bbq sauce and a beer. We should have started at 10am to call it a real Australian BBQ :p
Also the perfect moment to catch up with my Muay Thai buddy from Koh Tao, Stephen!

Wallace… No… Inbar, Karven, Weiz, Sags, Sana, Jay, Neil, Vicky, Dan, Kash, V and Fatima! You guys rock! Thank you so much for everything!
I actually had red eyes choosing the pictures for this post. Ne changez pas! 😉

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Thumbs up

Since I left from Belgium, I wanted to go hitchhiking again.

hitch-hike
gerund or present participle: hitchhiking
travel by getting free lifts in passing vehicles.

As I mentioned before, I made it to Melbourne for free!
For new hitchhikers, I recommend checking out the HitchWiki. It’s an encyclopedia where you can find lots of information about hitchhiking:

• The “hitch-ability” of a country
• Do’s and don’ts
• Good starting points for getting from city A to B
• Camping spots
• Different laws in each country regarding hitchhiking 

Hitchhiking is always an adventure! You never know how long you’re going to be on your spot. It can be five minutes or three hours.
I slept next to the road in open air once, after 9 hours on the same spot with my buddy Jens.
Besides time, there is also no such thing as your typical hitchhiking driver. It can be a single mom, grumpy truck driver, a business man, a silent Johny or a bus full of hitchhikers.
The same thing goes for the car: Porsche Cayenne, 50 year old volvo or a delivery truck where you’ll sit in the trunk.

Sydney – Melbourne

Also this time my rides where really interesting! Thanks to the Hitchwiki, I started at a good spot a little bit outside Sydney.

My first ride was with Paul, a +70y Australian guy driving in a small pick-up. Six months before, he found out he was adopted. Paul was on his way home after meeting his real sister for the first time in Newcastle. This became the main subject of our ride! He also invited me for lunch at Hungry Jacks (Australian Burger King) After 300 km, he dropped me off at a good spot to get my next ride.

Here, I only had to wait 20 minutes for my next ride. This time, my driver was from China and only spoke a few words of English. Since I forgot his name, I’ll call him Nemo. Same as with Paul, Nemo shared his fastfood with me. He was meeting his friend, let’s call him Dory, halfway to Melbourne to sell him fish. This last part is really not a joke 😉
Dory would drive back to Melbourne and became my third and last ride.

By using my thumb, a sign saying Melbourne and a Belgian smile, I traveled 860km, had too much fastfood for one day but arrived in Melbourne at 9pm for free.

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Melbourne

During my trip through SEA and Australia, I’ve met many backpackers coming from Australia. 99% of them recommended me to go and stay in Melbourne for a while. It’s nice, hipster, laidback and has some more personality compared to Sydney.
From the few places I’ve seen, I can confirm this 😉

• Less active wear in the street
• Hipster
• Graffiti
• Here and there a church
• Many small bars and cafes

So far I haven’t been able to visit Melbourne in detail because of work. This weekend, my buddy Jens is moving over from London to Melbourne and I’ll be back in tourist mode. Next post, more about this!

Freelancing

So far I’ve only seen my hostel, the State library of Victoria, the Kathleen Library and the road to these places. These libraries have proper wi-fi and are a good work environment. Since I left Vietnam, I kept contact with my CS friend Kane who works as a project assistant at Blue R, a video production company. We’ve been working non-stop on a new project since I arrived in Melbourne.

A little time-lapse of myself, working in the library. Do notice my smile at a certain time. That’s the moment I saw the new Star Wars trailer 😉
Also, I should stop touching my nose while working