May 2007

I've been in Melbourne for two weeks now. I had to change rooms in my hostel and this was not pretty. My new room was a dark dungeon with no windows and I shared it with vampires. My new roomates slept all day and went out all night. When they returned they were not quiet. I felt really claustrophobic in the back of the room, on the top bunk, blocked by a partition in the room. It is safe to say that I did not sleep well that first night. I got up the next morning bright and early to see if I could switch to a room with a window at least. This proved to be no easy task. The guy at the front desk was smug and very unfriendly. He told me no rooms were available and I'd have to wait until people checked out before he would even consider giving me another room. He wouldn't even tell me if people were scheduled to move out of such a room. Jerk. So I pestered him relentlessly every half hour for two and half hours. Finally he caved and gave me a choice of about a dozen rooms. I finally picked my room and went to check into it. Alas! It was the most perfect room anyone could have! The only bed available was a double bed and the room contained a giant window! The room was nice and bright and I had a giant bed. I met my roomates later that night and so far they have been one of the best roomates I've had. They actually have jobs so they are long term residents of the Greenhouse Backpackers so they actually go to sleep at a decent hour. If they do go out, I do not hear them come back in at all.

I had two jobs when I came back to Melbourne which I was kind of excited about. I only had 3 weeks to work so I had to have these two jobs set up before I came back from Tasmania. However, they both turned out not to work. The first job I got was working functions and events at a posh hotel near the beach. However, I stayed at the accommodation there one night and didn't like the scene and did not have transportation after work to my new accommodation so I had to turn it down. The second job I thought that I really needed so I went to the training day. It was a fundraising job for the Fred Hollows Foundation. This foundation raises money for unfortunate aboriginals in Australia as well as funds and training for cataract surgery in third world countries. However, I needed to be an exuberant and outgoing person in order to convince people to donate $25 a month for a two year period. I'm not that outgoing and didn't feel like I would be able to convice people to do such an outstanding deed. So I regrettably quit that job too. I was a little upset with having no job for a 3 week period with nothing to do, when the Canadian government stepped up to the plate and gave me money! Good old income tax saved the day just in the nick of time. But I have a job for next week only handing out fliers. It'll give me something to do since I have run out of things to do in Melbourne.

So far I've gone to the Victoria Market almost every day that it has been open. This is such an amazing place. There are stalls upon stalls of fruit and vegetables, a deli selling meats and cheeses and breads, clothing and souvenirs gallore! Everytime I go there I see more and more.

I have also gone to a Footy Game with a group from the hostel. This game is called Aussie Rules Football. It is a mixture of football and rugby but can't really be defined unless you are actually witnessing it in person. I've gone to a game twice now and I am going to go to a third one this coming weekend. It's so much fun!

Also with a group from the hostel, I went on an organized walking tour of the city. I could only go half way with them since I needed to meet an old friend that I had met in Adelaide for coffee. But I saw such amazing architecture. I saw the worlds first heritage restored toilets. Yah, gross hey. Who would restore old toilets? Only Australians. I also went into the hidden dome of Melbourne which used to be an old bank. It is laced with real gold on it's interior but the whole dome is covered over by another building. Amazing. We went along some of the cities famous back alleys and laneways and discovered interesting graffiti that is actually encouraged here in Melbourne, only on these streets and is considered art. We stopped at a pub in one of these hidden laneways for lunch and it contained a giant buddha and chinese lanterns. Very interesting. I could only go this far because my time was up. But I went walking the rest of the tour the next day and discovered the Melbourne Museum and St. Patrick's Cathedral, a huge gothic church that is so magnificent!

I've managed to keep myself busy in Melbourne for two weeks and I hope that I can sustain this for another week. Then I am headed off to Sydney to pick Aaron up from the airport where we engage in our journey up the East coast of Australia before I head home with him.

Aboriginals were believed to come from Southeast Asia to the Australian mainland about 45,000 years ago. Because of the remote areas of Australia, there are many different tribes with many different languages. One tribe on one side of the country cannot talk to a tribe that lives on the other side. Their culture was based on a close spiritual bond with the land. Their religious beliefs center on the continuing existence of spirits that lived on the planet during the creation time or Dreamtime (see next blog entry for Dreamtime Story). The word 'dreamtime' was coined by two anthropologists, Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen in their attempt to translate the Arrernte word Altyerrenge. A similar word, alcheringa, used by the Arunta, Kaitish and Unmatjera tribes meaning the past in which their ancestors lived. A direct translation of alcheri means dream. These spirits were the ancestors of all living things and created all of the features of the natural world. Individuals who are spiritually bound to a certain site are required to perform rituals in order to keep the natural order of things. Victoria's aboriginal people (that state that Melbourne is in) before European's colonized Australia were called Koories. They had 38 different dialect groups and 10 different languages. They were seminomadic people based on seasonal variation and the need to be in certain places for rituals. Melbourne is in the Yarra Valley and contains the Woiworung clan of the Kulin Nation and are called the Wurundjeri.

In 1788 the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, New South Wales and Australia's first colony was created. This fleet contained 1030 people, which included 540 male and 188 female convicts. In 1803 a small group of convicts, soldiers and settlers headed south towards Sorrento on Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne. This became Victoria's first European settlement. However, the settlement was abandoned because a lack of fresh water. Instead a group sailed to Van Dieman's Land, as it was called back then and today is called Tasmania. They then founded Hobart and established a settlement there. In 1834 Portland became Victoria's first permanent settlement and was settled by Edward Henty who came from Tasmania.

The founding of Melbourne was done by two Tasmanian men, John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner. Batman illigitimately purchased 202,000 hectares of land from the aboriginals in the area. He then established a settlement on the northern side of the Yarra River. Fawkner, on the other hand, left for the Port Phillip Bay area 6 months after Batman with a group of Tasmania settlers and settled near the southern side of the Yarra River. Fawkner was known as the 'Grand Old Man of Victoria.' He was the driving force of the new settlement and because he was a son of a convict, he compaigned labourously for the rights of settlers and convicts while he sat on theh Legislative Council of Victoria for 15 years. He was a dedicated publisher, publican and self-taught bush lawyer. At his death, 15,000 people attended his funeral. Batman on the other hand was not thought highly of because of his dealings with the aboriginals, died of syphillis and no one attended his funeral.

The aboriginal population was hard hit by the settlement of Europeans. Before colonization by Europeans the aboriginal population was between 60,000 to 100,000 people. However, by the late 1940's, the population was cut down to about 15,000 and then by the 1880's dwindled at 800. The European settlers regarded the aboriginals as a hindrance to their settling of the land. They often accused them of stealing their crop and animals and many were killed either by gunfire, poison or herded up and driven off of cliffs into the ocean and drowned. In Tasmania a bounty was set over their heads and anyone who killed them was offered 1500 pounds. Back then that was a lot of money. If the aboriginals were not killed off directly by the Europeans they suffered from diseases such as smallpox, dysentry and measles.

Melbourne developed at an astonishing rate. By 1836 there were so many settlers moving into the area that the administrators of New South Wales had to declare the area open to settlement. In 1837 Robert Hoddle drew up plans for the city in which he layed out a geometric grid of straight lines along a conveniently straight stretch of the river.

In 1851 Victoria separated from New South Wales and Melbourne became it's capital city. Gold was then discovered in Bathurst in New South Wales. In hopes to keep Melbourne residents in the area, businessmen offered a reward to anyone that could find gold in Victoria. Little did they know that they were in an area that had the country's richest source of gold. The Colonial Gold Mining Company was created and between 1857 and 1894 approximately 15.96 tonnes of gold worth about $280 million dollars was found. The famous Welcome Stranger nugget was found in this area and was a record 72 kg and costing about $4 million by todays markets.

Gold was sweated from rocks buried deep beneath the surface of the earth approximately 400 million and 370 million years ago. Dissolved gold and silica was carried towards the surface of the earth. This boiling solution travelled along the fractures in the earth's soil and eventually cooled before reaching the surface. This resulted in gold and silica crystalizing into quartz reefs.

The gold rush brough about 1800 prospectors to Melbourne each and every week. This resulted in chaos! Businesses came to a standstill because most of the labour force headed off out in search for gold. However, few struck it lucky overnight. At this time the famous outlaw Ned Kelly emerged. He was defiant against institutionalized injustice but what eventually hung in the Melbourne Gaol. He was the subject of the first Australian feature film in 1906 called 'The Story of the Kelly Gang.'

The area was overwhelmed with wealth and decided to build a city of extravagance. This resulted in Renaissance style buildings and many public parks and gardens being erected within the city. By the 1880's, Melbourne was referred to as the 'Paris of the Antipodes.' However, all great must come to an end. The significant prosperity lasted only 40 years. The gold rush resulted in recklessness and money was invested in real estate and building works which resulted in extremely high land prices that would inevitably never last. The International Exhibition which promoted new industrial products was hosted at the Royal Exhibition Building in the Carlton Gardens in 1880, a famous building still standing today. In 1889 the property market collapsed and in 1890 investment in Australia from London started to deteriorate due to a financial crash in Argentina. The 1890's were known as a period fo severe economic depression.

On January 1, 1901, Victoria became an official state of Australia. The federal parliament was held at Melbourne's Parliament House and the state parliament was held at the Royal Exhibition Building. The country's capital was moved to Canberra in 1927. The Great Depression hi in 1931, which caused approximately one third of the working force to become unemployed. Poverty became widespread and the government decided to implement numerous major public works programs such as Yarra Boulevard, the Shrine of Remembrance, St. Kilda Rd and the Great Ocean Rd. Phar Lap, a champion racehorse, became a national icon in order to divert attention from hardship.

During World War II, non-British migrants fled to Australia. The Australia government hoped that the increase in population would strengthen the country's economy and contribute to it's ability to defend itself. Between 1947 and 1968, 800,000 non-British migrants immigrated to Australia.

Today Melbourne is a bustling city of close to 4 million people. That is the whole population of Alberta alone! However, it does not seem to be quite so busy as Sydney. The streets, architecture as well as Melbournian culture have changed dramatically since the 1860's, even though many of the early aspects still survive today.

From the 1860's, getting around was not very easy. There were dirt roads that became mud roads when it rained and therefore made it very hard to manoever. The main streets were rivers! When the town site was built, the main street, Elizabeth St., was in the center of a valley. On either side of this street were hills. Therefore, the rain naturally rain down each side of the two hills into the main street! People and animals drowned regularly. If that wasn't bad enough, in the dry summers hot winds created regular dust storms. Water carts were implemented to dampen the streets, but thus created the mud again. Deep potholes also claimed many lives. Imagine a pothole that could kill you. Edson potholes don't seem to be so bad anymore. Pedestrians were at a constant risk of being trampelled by galloping horses through the streets. In 1855 footpaths were created to help separate pedestrians from horse-drawn traffic. After 1855, crushed bluestone on a base of well packed stones were introduced as the new streets.

By 1880, the city started experimenting with differnet street surfaces including asphalting parts of Elizabeth St. Horse-drawn vehicles were the predominant mode of transport. A thing called 'horse jams', similar to traffic jams of today, became a huge problem. Policemen were stationed at major intersections to maintain order. As many as 20,000 horses were stabled in the inner city. Sewage flowed in large open gutters on the street. To get from the footpath to the road pedestrians crossed over wooden footbridges. Because of the sewage being out in the open, many diseases such as diphtheria and typhoid fever flourished. It wasn't until the 1890's when underground sewage was introduced and eventually the footbridges disappeared.

One of the most common social activities was promenading along Collins St. Wealthy ladies and gentlemen alike paraded around in the latest fashions. On Saturday mornings, these wealthy people would called what was 'The Block.' This simply meant they would walk a section of Collins St. to show off their new clothing and gossip to their friends. The Block still exists today even though it is highly more modernized with designer shops and people generally just go to shop.

1910 sparked the introduction of cable trams and hand pushed carts of vendors along with the horse-drawn vehicles. Bicycles and the earliest forms of motorized vehicles were also introduced. This was the first time that the street surface was truly sealed. Footbridges were replaced by curbs adn drains. The city became wired by this time and networks of pipes and cables were created underground and drooping across the streets. The usage of trains and trams doubled between 1898 and 1917 and therefore resulted in Flinders St. Station to become the city's new gateway.

In 1930, traffic became more organized. Trams had their own tracks and pedestrians kept to the footpaths. Because of an increase in motorized vehicles there became an increasing amount of traffic and therefore new regulations. Traffic lights were implemented along Swanston St. Tram safety zones were marked by painted lines and beacons were erected at the main intersections. However, the Great Depression slowed these changes and the number of horse-drawn vehicles increased again. The tram network became electrified between 1926 and 1940.

The 1960's brought on the modern day streets of Melbourne. In the beginning there was so much traffic looking for vacant parking spaces within the city that council workers erected roadside signs that stated: 'no parking', 'no standing', 'metered zone', and 'loading zone' to organize people. Pedestrian road signs were erected and flashing 'walk' and 'don't walk' signs were implemented. In 1958 Melbourne's famous hook turn was introduced to keep the traffic flowing. This is a really wierd concept in which to turn right a vehicle must hang out in the far left and let all of the traffic pass before they can cross over to the other street. I have almost been hit by cars many times because of this rule. By 1962 half a million cars were on the streets daily. Glass and steel skyscrapers emerged and immigrants brough their distinctive cultures to the area. There is a distinct Italian precinct in Melbourne and many European cafe's.

Even though Melbourne seems like a bustling unorganized city at first, as you get to know it it is very well organized and seems to run more smoothly than most cities, especially in comparison with Sydney. They have erected many laneways or back alleys between major streets to increase the pedestrian traffic. These have resulted in many hidden areas of the city that prove to be quite interesting if one happens upon them. Many are allowed graffiti and there are some very interesting parts of the city. There is lots of traffic in central Melbourne, which includes cars, trams, pedestrians, and even horse-drawn carriages! I think that is pretty cool.

Well I'm stalling in Melbourne for a little bit. It's a big city (3.5 million people) but it feels smaller and less busy than Sydney (4 million people). I'm going to be working for Cornucopia which fundraises for different charities. I haven't started yet but I will let all of you know how it is. I have less than three weeks before I go to Sydney to meet my man and then I'm doing the east coast! I'm so excited.

Talk to you all soon.

Tasmania was once called Van Dieman's Land. It housed troublesome convicts in the 19th century coming from Europe, mainly Britain. It was a way of getting rid of the unwanted characters because going to Australia was usually a one way ticket.

For a couple of days we decided to go stay in Port Arthur. Port Arthur used to be a very famous prison in the 1800's. It opened in 1836 and finally closed in 1876. It was famous for containing the most dismal of convicts. It is also famous for ghost hauntings.

When we arrived at the caravan park where we were staying, the lady at the front desk informed us that we needed to walk through the bush and along a beach, to go across a bridge and not up the stairs to the historic area where our ghost tour would commence. This would have been alright, except that it was pitch dark outside and there was a full moon peering out of a misty night sky. It was a very scary thought to be walking through this area at night by ourselves. But we did it. It was supposed to take 45 minutes but it only took us 25 minutes. Impressive.

On our ghost tour we stopped at the famous church. It had never been blessed because so many religions were using it. Our awesome guide told us a couple of dreary stories to get our adrenaline running. Apparently, as the church was being built by the convicts, one man building one wall of the church was spotted falling off the side of the wall. As he fell he smashed his head against the side and landed at the bottom dead. It is uncertain as to whether it was an accident or intentional. Twenty years ago the ground staff used to let ivy grow all over the church and the ivy would not grow where any of the mans blood had spilled. In the other corner of the church a man had been bludgened to death by another convict with the head of an axe. It is unknown why this man had killed the other but several accounts of him saying 'I am satisfied now' were heard.

The next stop was the parson's house right next door. His name was George Eastman and he lived in the house with his wife, children and servents. This place is known as the most haunted area of the historic grounds. Many ghost sightings have been observed over the years. We all went into the building and stood in a circle in one of the rooms. I immediately felt uncomfortable and felt as though someone was standing behind me. I also felt a tight sensation in my chest. I thought it was just claustrophobia because of the twenty people in the small space. But as I exited the building the sensation disappeared and other people on the tour described the same feeling.

The house was considered haunted even in Eastman's day. His wife thought that strange things were happening because the servents were playing tricks on one another. One day she was very angry so she set a trap. She placed string back and forth up the stairs and shut off the light and waited at the top of the stairs with her husband (of course!). At the first sound of footsteps coming up the stairs she lit her lantern only to discover that the string was being snapped but no one was to be seen coming up the stairs. Her and her husband were very calm to have just witnessed a ghost. A few days later a servent had walked into one of the rooms downstairs and everyone heard her fall to the ground as she fainted. When she awoke she said that as she opened the door she saw a dark sinister figure in the corner. But nobody was found.

Other mysterious happenings also occurred in the house. It was witnessed in the upstairs rooms a brilliant white light whenever the doors were closed. Each time someone would open the door, the white light would disappear and no one was to be found inside. They could not figure out what was inside. Soon after all of these occurrances, the Eastman family moved.

After we had our 'fun' in that house we set off to the house next door. Our guide told us the story of a woman in a blue dress, originally named the Lady in Blue, who could be seen walking along the fence crying. She is known as the accountants wife. She gave birth to a still-born baby and died a few days later herself. It was known back then that a still-born baby had no soul and therefore wasn't baptised. It is believed that this woman is searching the grounds for her baby.

We then headed over to the Senior Medical Officers house, more specifically to his basement. There he had a dissection table for his inquisitive mind. There was a hole in the wall that was used to clean the fireplace upstairs and he used the ashes from this hole to sprinkle on the floor to soak up the blood for an easier cleaning. When we looked down on the floor, the ashes from the fire, possibly still mixed with blood, could still be seen.

Our last and final stop was the Separate Prison. This was separate from the original barracks and was used to house convicts who had misbehaved in the barracks or who were just plain crazy. It was also a scary place. Each convict had his own room and was not allowed to speak. He was not even allowed to be seen outside of his room either. When we went outside for only an hour a day for exercise he had to wear a mask. If he misbehaved even further in this area he was sent to the punishment cell. In here, the meter thick walls prevented any sound or light from coming in. I stepped inside here and did not know how you could stay sane within its walls for more than a moment. It would have been pretty scary.

The next day was filled with wandering the historic site in the day light! The grounds were very beautiful. We also went on a Isle of the Dead cruise and tour. The Isle of the Dead is an island they used as the cemetary. It is 2 acres and contains at least 1100 bodies. Most of the bodies were not marked with proper gravestones because they were convicts, so most of the old gravestones were from the soldiers or other important figures in the village. We passed a peninsula called Point Puer which housed troublesome boys between the ages of 14 and 17. Here they were treated a little less harsh and were taught skills and trades to help them in life if and when they were released. There was one boy in the prison who was 8 years old. He was apparently brought there for stealing toys in Britain. It sounds very harsh but this was not the only reason for being brought to Port Arthur. He had the longest record of crime than anyone at the prison. He had a hard time getting out of the penal system and stayed at the prison for over 40 years.

Even though the story behind this place is very dark it was a starting point for the current penal systems. Instead of using cat-whips and brute force, this penal colony used a new method of punishment which included education.

I took a ferry (but it was more like a cruise ship!) over to Tasmania from Melbourne. I noticed that on my ticket it said I was in business class. How exciting! Not really. When I finally got seated it was only a reclining chair amongst many other reclining chairs in a little room at the back of the boat. This was going to be an 11 hour ride and it didn't look like fun.

We weren't on the boat for more than 10 minutes when the creepiest dude on the planet found us. He offerred to buy us beer after from the lounge if we were bored. I think he just assumed that we would be bored because he came back to our seats not long after and informed us that he smuggled beer onto the ferry so he could get drunk for cheap! Oh hurray. I declined the offer but he still stuck around to babble on about nothing. He was sure a strange character. Finally after pretending to doze off in my chair he finally took the hint and went back to his seat.

It was a very long and uncomfortable sleep in my reclining chair. When we arrived in Devonport at 7 in the morning we caught the Tassie Link bus over to Launceston. As luck would have it, the YHA staff member that we got to book our stay in the hostel here screwed up somehow and so we had no booking anywhere in town. The first hostel that we stopped at is what I chose because I was walking any distance with my pack looking for a hostel. It turned out to be a bad choice though. It was situated right beside a bar and of course we got the room right next to it. The room also had a window that would not close either. Tasmania, as I have discovered, has the same climate as Canada and therefore is kind of cold, especially after you have been acclimatized to temperatures above 30 degrees celcius. I froze my butt off all night.

Out of Launceston we tried to get a day tour out to Cradle Mountain. But it seemed impossible. There weren't enough people interested in a day tour out there so one company wasn't running it. The only other company running said they were all booked up. So what was I to do? Pack my things and move to Hobart. But before that we hiked up the Cataract Gorge in central Launceston and observed the beautiful river gorge. It was very beautiful with all of the fall colours from the trees.

The next day I caught the Tassie Link bus again to travel the 2.5 hours to Hobart. Hobart is a great place. I chose a hostel that was a little out of the way so that it would be quiet. It was only a 25 minute walk into the central city, but my travel buddy thought it was going to be way out of the way. The hostel, Allports, has been the best place that I have stayed since I left home. It was full of friendly people and it was very clean and homey. I felt quite comfortable there. Good thing, because we were staying quite a few days there.

Hobart is famous for its Salamanca Market. It runs every Saturday and has at over 300 stalls selling arts and crafts, fresh produce and souvenirs of all sorts. It was very cool. There was a busker on the street playing a guitar, the drums and a didgeridoo all at the same time. I thought he was very talented so I bought his CD.

One of the days that we were there we went to Mount Field National Park on a day trip. It was raining and cold so the trip had to be adjusted accordingly. Our first stop was the Something Wild Wildlife Park. This place contained Tasmanian Devils, wombats, platypuses, polka dotted quolls, grey kangaroos, wallabies and of course cockatoos. The Tasmanian Devils were not as I expected. They looked very cute and cuddly but the guide informed us that this is very false. He told us of a story of a man who was walking home from the bar drunk and passed out along the way. When we woke up he discovered a Tasmanian Devil chewing on his fingers and then he noticed that he was missing two fingers already! Gross. The wombat was very interesting too. His name was Benny and he had been hand raised by the guide there. Wombats are very aggressive when they mature and when the guide got into the pen with Benny, he had to be very careful not to get caught by this little monster. The whole time the guide was telling us about wombats Benny was trying to attack him and bite him. He made a really wierd noise too as his aggressive noise that sounded like a farting noise. Not very scary at all, but I definitely didn't want to get in the pen with him.

We drove up Mt Field but it started raining even harder. We walked around Lake Dobson at the top anyway. It was a very dismal looking place because of the mist within all of the trees surrounding you. We drove further down the mountain and walked through a rainforest to Russell Falls.

We also went up to Freycinet National Park for a day tour as well. Here we stopped at many white sand beaches. But they are really cold so there was no swimming involved. The Tasmanians think that the water is quite cold, but they obviously haven't been swimming in glacial water back in Canada. The main beach that we went to see was the famous Wineglass Bay. It was a steep hike up to the lookout but it was definitely worth it. It was beautiful.

Back in Hobart we went on a Cadbury Chocolate Factory tour. We learned how the chocolate is made and how it is packaged. The rooms in the factory were so sweet smelling it almost made you sick to your stomach. It was very hot in there too. I can't imagine working in that room for 12 hours. At the end of the tour we got a little goody bag full of chocolate and then an opportunity to buy cheap chocolate at their gift shop. Of course I loaded up with chocolate but I mailed most of it home for the family.