Melbourne

(Written on 29th June)

Today I fly back to Sydney to catch an early morning flight to Kuala Lumpur. I'm ready to leave the western world behind me for a couple of months and experience something new and different but that's not to say that I haven't enjoyed my time in Australia. 

Sydney is a great cosmopolitan city with lots to do and great beaches but I felt more of an affinty to Melbourne. It's a very relaxed city and much more compact than Sydney. In fact I've been thinking about getting a 1 year work-travel visa and coming back to Melbourne in the UK autumn, just in time for Aussie summer, and making sure I'm here for the Australian F1 Grand Prix in April :)  

One of the highlights was the Tim Burton exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. An amazing exhibition espcially of you like Tim Burton's stuff and really helps you understand how he thinks and where he comes up with his weird and wonderful movies.

I loved walking around the city which is small enough to be able to navigate after just one day and the free tourist shuttles help too!  One walk took me down little cobbled streets and alley ways filled with quirky shops, bars and cafe's that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. 

I'm also getting back into experimenting with photography after a break of a few months. The Sydney Opera House was the first in what I hope will be an exciting few months of digital memories. Melbourne doesn't have the famous landmarks Sydney does but you can still get pretty great views from the southbank and I've had fun trying to take some self portraits - one downside of travelling alone is that there's never anyone around to take a picture of you in front of the big attractions so instead you look like a bit of a schmuck setting the timer and running in front of the camera in time for an out of focus, half-in snap shot.  Makes for some of the funnier memories though :)