bcm | Australia

I lived in Melbourne, Australia for most of 2001. I fell in love with the place immediately, renting a house within two weeks of arriving in Melbourne. Altho I did return to the States a couple of times, explorations of Melbourne and travels around Victoria were definitely the high points of the year.

January - February

I first visited Australia just after the New Year to hang with Olivia and to help her move from Sydney down to Melbourne. We stayed at a hotel downtown for a couple of weeks until we found this really charming old house named Nirvana on the beach just at the edge of Elwood and St Kilda.

Not having a job, I did quite a bit of exploring and hanging out with new friends, some of whom I introduced to Century Club on Australia Day. The other big event of the summer was the St Kilda Festival, after which I headed back to the States for a few weeks to wrap up some loose ends.

March - June

I returned to Melbourne in the beginning of March to a house full of visitors: Xep, Eric, Elly, and Kallen. We slept late and bummed around a lot. One weekend we drove up to Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road. I felt like a native and enjoyed showing the Americans around my new home.

After the visitors went home, I spent the next few months working on various software projects, going to the cinemas and attending an evening film class at the School of Film and Television at the Victorian College of the Arts. During this time, Chaya visited and Kyla came to stay with us for a few months. The girls and our pals Kim and Thomas managed to drag me to Goth clubs a few times. I also went to a lot of indie rock shows.

At the end of June I once again traveled back to the States, this time to attend the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Gen Con and a wedding and to log some more hours for Critical Path.

October - December

When I returned again to Melbourne in early October the house was empty, since Olivia was in San Francisco and Kyla had gone back to New Zealand. However, within a few days my friend Keith from New York City arrived. I drove with him and his travel mate Toni Ann to down to Phillip Island in eastern Victoria to see giant worms, koalas and penguins. Unfortunately many of the photos I took were subsequently corrupted by my flash card reader (which I promptly chucked).

After Keith left, I rented a car and drove up the Great Ocean Road and around western Victoria. Such a beautiful land, with rolling hills, mountains, forests, dead volcanoes, and rain forests within a few hours' drive of each other.

Later, Elly and Peter came for a visit. We were very mellow; most days we wandered around St. Kilda, read comic books at Revolver, went to the Punter's Club for indie rock shows, etc. One afternoon we explored the Royal Botanic Garden and other parks. The last week of their visit, we went on a road trip around central Victoria, visiting the Mallee desert region and then driving back down the Murray River.

After a few weekes of being heads-down on various software projects, in early November I took the Ghan train from Melbourne to Alice Springs (with a 5 hour stop in Adelaide for a bit of the ol' tourism). I rented a very large 4x4 vehicle and drove up into the MacDonnell Ranges and then several hundred km south to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and Mt. Olga (unfortunately, I left my camera's battery charger at home, so I only have pictures from the first day). The rainy season had just started and some of the canyons I wanted to visit were inaccessible due to flooding, but there were still plenty of adventures to be had. I got my vehicle stuck in the middle of a flooded river and had to be towed out by locals, and I almost ran out of fuel 30km from the nearest road house. The trip was a blast!

After i flew back to Melbourne from Alice Springs, I had less than a week to hang out with Olivia, Steve, and O's visiting Kiwi friend Belinda before boarding another plane to Singapore and then on to San Francisco and Seattle for the holidays.

 

Look at maps to orient yourself.