The saga of the SIM-card-that-didn’t-work-despite-being-told-that-it-would was rolling into yet another phase. Mum had activated a new SIM at home for me, and then posted it out to Jill, hoping it would reach her before she came to see me. It didn’t. The next phase was for Jill to send it up to Noosa, as my friend Mike was going to be down in Melbourne a few days later, but it hadn’t reached him in time either. I had hoped that by this stage, he might have received it and could have posted it to the hotel for me, but it hadn’t even reached him, so there was no point. My hat still hadn’t arrived from New Zealand either, despite James posting it several days earlier. The Australian Postal Service is not my friend, it seems.
After seeing Ali off to the airport, I picked up my bags from the Radisson and moved a block across to the Discovery Melbourne Hostel, where I had met the Groovy Grape tour last week. The lobby was bright and friendly, so I had decided to try it for my last couple of nights. The dorm rooms were clean and nicely decorated, but still quite small.
I caught up with Deb again and arranged to meet for drinks tonight. We met up at Goldilocks, a tiny rooftop bar on Swanston Street in time to watch a stunning sunset. Melbourne introduced a ban on smoking indoors fairly early on, so there was an explosion of roof conversions and imaginative ways to provide outdoor spaces. Deb explained that there are now a number of semi-secret cocktail bars that get by mostly on word-of-mouth advertising. This was one she’d heard about from a friend and wanted to try. They only had 3 tables and space for another ten or fifteen people at a bar along the front. We sat there admiring the view across the rooftops and drinking delicious chilled Australian Pinot Grigio. We had a great evening setting the world to rights, discussing work, life, travel and all else in between.
Several hours later, we headed back down from the roof and accidentally followed the stairwell too far down, coming out into a yard at the back of the building instead of the main entrance on Swanston Street. As we tried to find our way back around, we saw a group of people up on a first floor balcony having a great time. We asked them which way we should go to get out of the yard and they invited us up to join them instead. It turned out to be another of these secret cocktail bars called Ferdydurke which Deb had been told about. They directed us to a doorway around the corner and we climbed a graffiti-covered stairwell to a tiny upstairs bar papered in flyers advertising bands, festivals and comedy shows. We were greeted by a very cheerful barman who talked us through their cocktail list. They had the classics on the list and quite a few of their own imaginative inventions, too. We joined the girls outside on the narrow balcony and I had barely managed two sips of my cocktail before one of them swung around and knocked my drink flying. Fortunately, I’d had enough of a taste to know Deb had chosen better than me, so when the girl insisted on replacing it, I ordered the same as Deb instead. Happy days!
On my last day in Melbourne, I took it easy and sorted through my To Do list. I packed up the things I wanted to send home and found the nearest post office. I checked at the Radisson again, but they still hadn’t received my parcel from James – I’m still upset that I left my hat behind in the first place and I don’t know what to do if it doesn’t arrive before I leave in the morning.
I went back to my favourite Vietnamese place for my last bowl of beef pho and read my book for an hour, just soaking up the atmosphere. The last thing was to buy myself several loaves of Gluten Free bread and noodles to take up to Gili with me in preparation for my Divemaster internship. once I get there I can store the bread in their freezer, I just need to work out how to fit it all into my bag in the meantime...